asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he will take to make mortgages more readily available for first-time house buyers in areas of older or low-cost housing.

We expect that the building society replacement lending scheme will be of particular assistance to first-time purchasers buying older and cheaper houses, since local authorities' own lending has concentrated on such applicants. There has also been a welcome shift in societies' lending generally: 23 per cent. of all their loans in 1976 went on pre-1919 property compared with 19 per cent. the previous year. For the future, our overall Review of Housing Policy is looking, inter alia, at the needs of first time purchasers.