Former MP for Pontypool
I wish those who are represented by Tory Members were here tonight to observe their demeanour and listen to their contributions. I have no doubt that they would be very much moved by the sympathy hon. Members opposite are showing to the difficulties that tenants in the new towns are now suffering as a result of Government policy. I understood that the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. D. Price)...
If the hon. Gentleman who makes his comments sitting down really had any sympathy with the new town tenants, his observations and interruptions of my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham would not have been put in the way he did put them.
I was hoping to demonstrate to hon. Members opposite that the new town tenants desire, need and deserve special consideration, and if the hon. Gentleman does not know the policy underlying the Amendment we will try to inform him. New town development was a grand social conception accepted by all parties in this House. The new town corporations have been entrusted with the momentous task of...
I accept that. Perhaps I misunderstood the noble Lord, and I hope that he will forgive me. But, although his new town corporation has no difficulty in letting houses, will he tell the House the turnover of tenancies within his new town?
I am prepared to tell him that the turnover of new town tenants is greater than will be found among tenants of local authority houses. The reason is that the new town rents are high. It is true that there are people who are desperately anxious to get a house and are, therefore, prepared to pay exceptionally high rents, but they find that they are unable to maintain them. That is the case in...
Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that if the additional assistance which we are seeking were given to the new towns, it would merely bring the new town tenant into a comparable position with other tenants?
I am sorry to interrupt again, but does not the hon. Gentleman agree that when one compares the rent in new towns with comparable rents of local authority houses, the economic rental of the new town houses must of necessity be higher because of the increased site costs and other works which the new town corporations have to undertake?
This is the last time that I shall interrupt the hon. Gentleman. I am obliged to him for giving way again. Having regard to the fact that he concedes that additional assistance is necessary for the new towns if the £32 subsidy is not adequate to bring the rent of houses in a new town into a comparable position with the rent of local authority houses, does he not agree that additional...
