Statistics on Housing Starts

Part of Orders of the Day — Housing Bill – in the House of Commons at 8:45 pm on 19 May 1980.

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Photo of Mr Donald Anderson Mr Donald Anderson , Swansea East 8:45, 19 May 1980

The hon. Gentleman said "As matters improve". He should read his Government's public expenditure White Paper, which shows that over the next four years the amount allocated to public sector housing will be halved both in England and in Wales. My priorities are different from those pursued by the Government. We shall not find salvation in the housing associations, the cause of which the hon. Gentleman espouses.

There is clear evidence in all parts of the country of a collapse in public sector housing. The chairman of a council in the Principality confirmed that. I refer to the area that I know best. The Secretary of State for Wales said, in mitigation of the Government's cutbacks and the 100 per cent. fall in real terms over the period 1979–80 to 1983–84 from £217 million to £110 million, that over the next year the Government would meet 80 per cent. of the guarantee made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones) when he had responsibility for housing in Wales. He made it quite clear that that 80 per cent. was for planning purposes only, and that the previous Labour Administration were prepared to finance the whole programme of housing authorities in Wales. My local authority was allocated less than two-thirds of the sum that it sought. It had already committed itself to more than the sum that it obtained from the Government and was denied at a late stage, when its HIP was announced in February, the 10 per cent. carry-over that it had assumed would continue as previously. The authority has a high proportion of pre-1919 houses. The number of properties lacking basic amenities is substantially higher than in Reading and other parts of the South-East.

The areas that are bearing the brunt of Government policies in other spheres will also feel the full effect of their housing policies. The Government try to say that council housing will increasingly be a specialist provision for the vulnerable—the old, the handicapped, and so on. But it is clear that the Government are making whole regions of the country vulnerable. There is, therefore, a greater need for public sector housing for those in, for example, steel areas such as my constituency who are feeling the effects of the unemployment brought about by the Government. Perhaps Reading is less vulnerable.