To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many (a) repair grants and (b) improvement grants have been made available by the Housing Executive in the last five years; and what has been the cost of the provision of these grants.

This is a matter for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive whose chief executive has advised me that the information is as follows:

Improvement Grants			Repair Grants
Year	Number	Cost £ million	Number	Cost £ million
1990–91	2,699	21.3	3,894	9·4
1989–90	2,906	22·6	4,439	10·7
1988–89	3,539	23·6	6,267	12·2
1987–88	3,973	29·4	5,001	15·3
1986–87	4,868	34·8	10,622	21·1

Rehabilitation Starts	1987–88	1988–89	1989–90	1990–91	1991–921	1992–93	1993–94	1994–95
Dwellings (Self-Contained)	75	118	279	101	130	100	110	120
Hostel Bedspaces (Shared)	106	272	103	83	70	50	50	60
1 Figures for 1991–92 are estimated.

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many Housing Executive dwellings have been improved in each of the last five years; and what are the projected figures for the next three years.

This is a matter for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive whose chief executive has advised me that the number of its dwellings improved in each of the last five years was as follows:

	Number
1986–87	19,560
1987–88	37,036
1988–89	29,545
1989–90	13,095
1990–91	10,895

The executive expects to improve 9,450 dwelling in the current year but it has not yet proposed how its resources should be allocated for the next three years.