To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will estimate how many houses categorised as defective under part XIV of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 remain in the ownership of (a) each local housing authority, (b) each new town development corporation or (c) the Scottish Special Housing Association.

The information requested, based on returns by the bodies concerned to the Scottish Development Department, is set out in the table. No houses of the type described are owned by any of the new town development corporations or by those local authorities not entered in the table.

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many houses which are categorised as defective under part XIV of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 have been purchased by sitting tenants since the passage of the Housing (Scotland) Act; and how many have subsequently been (a) repurchased by the land authority or (b) reinstated with grant aid.

Assistance under the Housing Defects Act 1984, now consolidated as part XIV of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, is generally available only to those persons who bought their houses before the designated cut-off date of 26 April 1984. No information is therefore held centrally on defective houses purchased by sitting tenants after that date or of any subsequent resale to the authority.