To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many council homes have been built by Bradford metropolitan district council in each of the last three years.

Completions of new council dwellings reported by Bradford metropolitan district council were 42, 47 and nil in 1987, 1988 and 1989 respectively. Returns received for 1990 cover only the months up to August and these show no further completions of council housing.

Do not those miserable figures represent a massive indictment of the Government's failure to respond to the housing crisis that has gripped Bradford for the past 12 years? Does the Minister recognise that that crisis is now so acute that the council is considering formally closing its housing waiting list on which there are 9,000 applicants? When will the Government pump into Bradford the necessary funds to enable the council to build homes for the thousands of families who urgently and desperately need them?

In addition to the local authority council housing completions to which I referred, almost 400 housing association dwellings have been completed in the same period. Substantial estate action support totalling almost £10 million over the past three years has also been pumped into Bradford. The question that the hon. Gentleman should really be addressing is why Bradford council has kept empty 700 houses that could be used for housing the homeless, about whom the hon. Gentleman purports to be so concerned.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the people who want low-cost houses to rent in Bradford would do better if their local authority were to copy Ryedale district council in transferring its housing stock to a housing association? My hon. Friend's reply to the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Madden) shows that housing associations are now the proper route for the provision of homes to rent. As the people of Bradford once had the good sense to vote in a Conservative council, does my hon. Friend agree that if the council in Bradford were to consult the people of Bradford, as Ryedale district council consulted in Ryedale, it would receive a strong and positive answer to any request to do that?

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend and take this opportunity of saying how much we welcome the transfer of Ryedale's council housing stock in its entirety to a housing association, which was approved only a week of two ago. The effect of that transfer is to bring in substantial funds from the private sector, some of which are available to Ryedale council for any other housing needs in its area. I commend the same process not only to Bradford, but to a great many other Labour-controlled authorities, because I have no doubt that the tenants in all those areas would benefit enormously if their councils were willing to follow the example that has been set by Ryedale.