Public Sector Housing

                    The text on this page has been created from Hansard archive content, it may contain typographical errors.
                

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he plans early changes in the conditions governing the sale of houses and flats to tenants of local authorities and development corporations.

Yes. I intend to make the following changes:

(a) to ensure fairness for widows, and those who may be divorced or separated, sitting tenants may be offered discounts based not only on their own length of tenancy, but on any period spent living as the husband or wife of a tenant; and

(b) to ensure that tenants do not have to pay twice for their own improvements, the price to be charged for a house or flat may be reduced to take account of the value of improvements made by the purchaser when he was a tenant.

Revised general consents to bring about these changes have been issued and come into effect today.

Volume 975: debated on Wednesday 5 December 1979