Loft Insulation Mrs. Chalker asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the estimated numbers of homes with accessible lofts remaining uninsulated at December 1977 (a) in the private sector, owner-occupied and rented, (b) in the public sector, (c) in pensioner households, owner-occupied, rented and council owned, (e) in pensioner households with laying of an appeal and the decision; and what it was in each year since 1970. Mr. Guy Barnett The periods between receipt and decision taken by planning appeals decided in the June quarter 1978 were as follows: ------------------------------------------------------------------ | | ------------------------------------------------------------------ |Appeals decided by Secretary of State after local inquiry | ------------------------------------------------------------------ |Appeals decided by Secretary of State on written representations| ------------------------------------------------------------------ |Appeals decided by Inspectors after local inquiry | ------------------------------------------------------------------ |Appeals decided by Inspectors on written representations | ------------------------------------------------------------------ Corresponding periods for each year since 1970 were as follows: 1970 — 42, 32, 29 and 29 weeks1971 — 45, 39, 31 and 31 weeks1972 — 48, 43, 34 and 32 weeks1973 — 61, 52, 46 and 34 weeks1974 — 80, 56, 65 and 38 weeks1975 — 73, 55, 50 and 34 weeks1976 — 55, 45, 30 and 24 weeks1977 — 46, 37, 27 and 24 weeks The 1977 and June quarter 1978 figures are median times.