asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will publish in HANSARD a table of figures giving the cost of a 900 square feet standard area council built house in each year from 1951 to date, and the cost of borrowing, at the then current interest rates, a 100 per cent. loan for payment of those houses, on a repayment basis spread over sixty years.

The table below gives for each year the average building cost of local authority three-bedroom houses, adjusted to a standard area of 900 square feet, and the annual charges payable on a loan of that amount for a period for sixty years. The figures for building costs are based on tender prices and exclude the cost of land and services.The rates of interest shown are those charged by the Public Works Loans Board at the beginning of each year, but since the end of 1955 most local authority housing has been financed by borrowing on the open market for much shorter periods than sixty years and in general at lower rates of interest. The figures in the table are not therefore representative of the cost of building to local authorities.Following is the table: