To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what further consideration he has given to UK Nirex Ltd.'s work programme to establish a deep repository at Sellafield for the disposal of radioactive waste, following the publication of the annual report of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee.

It is for Nirex to bring forward its proposals in accordance with its timetable.

Is it not the case that the publication of the Government's own advisory committee's report has left their and Nirex's policy in disarray, and that the likelihood is that Sellafield will prove geologically unsuitable as a nuclear dump? Will the Minister advise Nirex not to look north again to Dounreay as an alternative site? Will he accept that there is no case, no support and ultimately no chance of the north of Scotland accepting a position as Europe's nuclear midden?

The hon. Gentleman is jumping to far too many conclusions very far down a hypothetical route. It is entirely up to Nirex to decide to take into account the recommendations of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee. It is for Nirex to decide where it wants the deep disposal laboratory and to ask the regulatory authorities to ensure that it has taken into account all the appropriate safety considerations.

Does my hon. Friend agree that many workers in Scotland regularly lobby his Department and the Department of Trade and Industry to ensure that we have plenty of jobs in the nuclear industry and that it is very divisive for hon. Members to suggest that nuclear waste should not be stored in one part of the United Kingdom as opposed to another?

Yes, it is a pity if the issue becomes a political football that the nationalists wish to kick around the court. It is entirely a matter for Nirex to advance its plans for a deep disposal repository, and it is entirely appropriate for an independent advisory body such as RoWMAC to comment on those proposals. They will all be taken into account by the appropriate regulatory authorities.

But the Minister cannot abdicate his responsibility for these matters. Does he not realise that the great majority of people in Cumbria and, indeed, in his constituency, are wholly opposed to the nonsensical proposition?

First, I should prefer to speak for my own constituents, rather than have the hon. Gentleman pretend to do so.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he next plans to visit Leicestershire to meet representatives of the county council to discuss the provision of local services.

I have no present plans to do so.

I am disappointed by the Minister's response. Is he aware that at the recent local elections, Tory candidates did badly in Leicestershire, as in all the shire counties, but especially in my constituency where they received only 17 per cent. of the vote? Is he further aware that that derisory vote is a condemnation not only of national Government policy but of local Tory policies, especially the setting of a recent county council budget which condemned to closure the Beale Street nursery, the Goldhill adventure playground and the Highfield adventure playground, all in my constituency? If the new county council takes steps to reverse that decision, will the Minister guarantee that neither he nor his right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State will intervene?

It is, of course, up to each county council to make its own decisions on budgets and taxation, within the normal annual cycle and within the law. I hope that the county councillors in Leicestershire, and elsewhere, decide to get good value for money and to pursue the right policies, with common sense. That would be easier if there were more Conservatives on the authority, but I hope that the Labour councillors will take on board some of the messages from my hon. Friends and from Conservative county councillors around the country about how to get proper value for money and how to live easily within the budget limits set.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many houses are forecast to be provided by housing associations over the next three years.

The Housing Corporation currently expects to provide grant towards about 170,000 homes over the next three years. In addition, local authorities will fund schemes, using local authority housing association grant.

I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on announcing a significant 11 per cent. increase in the number of new homes to be built, over and above our manifesto pledge of last year. Over the past year, local authorities in my constituency of Cambridgeshire, North-East have benefited substantially from housing association money. Will my right hon. and learned Friend also confirm that the announcement in the autumn statement that the rules on capital receipts were to be relaxed provided yet more opportunity for investment in new homes built for rent?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I can certainly give him the confirmation that he seeks. We estimate that about £1 billion worth of capital receipts may be available for investment in housing, and local authorities can use them to support housing associations' new build. In 1992–93, about 6,000 new houses were built using local authority housing association grant, and the Housing Corporation's own programme for 1993–94 has been expanded by about £117 million in contributions from local authorities.

When will the Secretary of State be able to tackle the problem that more housing associations face every day, whereby their need to balance the books means that they will soon be charging rents that will be extremely difficult for people who need low-cost housing to pay? Is not he aware that many councils gave assistance to housing associations, providing suitable sites at peppercorn rents, or selling them cheaply, on the assumption that low-cost housing would be provided, yet now they find that their own people are being priced out of the new housing associations?

People who need low-cost housing get the help provided through housing benefit, which is an excellent example of a targeted benefit directed to people who need help.

Will my right hon. and learned Friend examine housing associations' practice of demanding land from local authorities for nothing, which is causing great resentment among local authorities that are obliged to give up land for housing to housing associations? Will he also re-examine the right to buy housing association properties?

Housing associations are not in a position to demand what my hon. Friend says that they demand. We are encouraging them to work with local authorities and they are increasingly doing so. I will give careful consideration to my hon. Friend's suggestion concerning the right to buy.

Is not it a fact that housing associations will still provide a mere 3 per cent. of the total housing stock, and that all the Government's piecemeal housing initiatives together will go nowhere near providing the 100,000 new homes for rent every year that the Institute of Housing and other bodies say are desperately needed by thousands of homeless people still sleeping out, and by the 147,000 people registered with local authorities as statutorily homeless? Will not the intention of the Secretary of State's right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to cut housing benefit later this year force even more people to lose their homes in the face of high and rising rents?

The hon. Gentleman is talking nonsense, as he usually does. We are making substantial progress in addressing the housing problems which we face. It will not do at all for Labour party spokesmen to come to the Dispatch Box and reel off meaningless statistics, while claiming to be a party of financial probity, for one claim is totally inconsistent with the other.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to provide additional financial resources for the provision of low-cost social housing in rural areas; and if he will make a statement.

The Government provide support for low-cost rural housing through the Housing Corporation and local authority housing investment programme allocations. The Housing Corporation plans to approve 1,850 new housing association homes this year under its rural housing programme. That is in addition to the 5,500 homes for which the programme has provided funding since it began in 1989–90. Last year, the housing market package enabled housing associations to buy some 730 homes in villages with a population of 3,000 or fewer. Support for rural housing has also been provided through allocations for local authorities under the housing partnership fund.

The existing situation may appear to be encouraging, but is the Minister aware of the increasing anxiety about the future provision of adequate affordable social housing in rural areas, given the proposed changes in the level of grant support for housing associations? Does he recognise the implications that that will have for rents, particularly in low-income areas such as mine, and the implications of the poverty trap for the families involved?

This year, we were able to bring the grant rate down from 72 to 69 per cent. without any significant impact on rents whatever. However, we were able to ensure that we could build 3,300 more homes. I thought that my hon. Friend would have welcomed that, because many of the homes were able to go into rural areas.

Why does not the Minister admit that the supply of new housing association dwellings has not in any way been able to make up for the fact that, for 14 years, local authorities in rural areas, as well as elsewhere, have simply not been able to build? Although I am not a vindictive person, is the Minister aware that sometimes I wish that Ministers were in the position of constituents of mine and so many other hon. Members—suffering great housing hardship and misery because they cannot afford to buy and having no way of being rehoused either by a local authority or housing association? Why must such people suffer simply because of Tory dogma?

This year, we are investing through the Housing Corporation £2·3 billion in housing associations building a large number of new homes. Moreover, we are making significant sums available to local authorities such as Walsall to invest in improving their own housing stocks to ensure that every family in the country has a decent home in which to live.

Will my hon. Friend bear in mind what my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, South-East (Mr. Hicks) said about the rents charged by some housing associations, especially when land has been given to them and the rent is nearly the market rent, which does little to help those in the west country who cannot afford that sort of rent when they are trying to find accommodation?

As my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State said, we are seeking to ensure that the housing benefit is targeted at those who need help with their housing costs. Of course, we want to ensure that there is affordable housing in rural areas, as elsewhere, and we are investing substantial sums. In addition to the money that is being made available to local authorities in Devon and elsewhere through the housing investment programme, local authorities will be able to spend their capital receipts this year. Money is also available through the housing partnership fund. Some £30 million is available nationwide and £5 million is being allocated to the south-west. Under the Housing Corporation's rural programme, 2,500 new homes have been allocated to rural areas. All that demonstrates a substantial investment in rural housing in my right hon. Friend's constituency and elsewhere.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on what further progress has been made on eco-labels.

The criteria for washing machines and dish washers, prepared by the United Kingdom, have been agreed by the EC regulatory committee and will be published shortly. Proposed criteria for light bulbs, toilet paper and kitchen paper will be considered by the regulatory committee in June. The launch of the scheme is planned for late June.

Can the Minister tell us how soon we will get some products with the labels on in shops? Can he confirm that for three years the Government have been stalling the idea of a United Kingdom scheme on the basis that we would get an EC-wide system and that, even with the products to which he referred, such a system will apply only in a third of the countries in the EC and some of our partners have done nothing at all to introduce eco-labels?

I can confirm the last part of the hon. Gentleman's statement. However, I got the impression from the first part that he was taking his ire out on the United Kingdom by accusing us of stalling. We have pressed the Commission time and again. Indeed, when my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State was President of the European Community he pressed the Commission to make urgent proposals to get the eco-labelling scheme up and running. I even threatened at the Dispatch Box to run our own scheme unless progress was made. Due to our pressure, the Commission has listened and the products to which I referred are coming to the launch pad. I hope to see some of the first products in the shops by September. The hon. Gentleman can rest assured that we will keep up the pressure for other countries to do their share of eco-labelling, because we think that it is a rather good scheme.

I welcome the good technical work that is being done on product groups and the robust view that the United Kingdom Government are taking at European level. However, as the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) said, other countries are not playing their part. They are backsliding. Is it not time that we applied pressure to the European Commission to take those countries to the European Court for failing in their undertakings and specifically for failing to designate national competent bodies?

It is true that about half a dozen other countries in the EC have not yet designated competent bodies. The Commission has written to those countries urging them to do so. I hope that they will comply with the Commission's request as soon as possible, because it is in the interests of all our consumers in the EC who wish to do their bit to help the environment and to have the choice of selecting the most environmentally sound products. I assure my hon. Friend that we will keep up our constant pressure on the Commission for others to pull their full weight, just as we are doing.

Does the Minister agree that it would be better not to have double standards and that if we are to have eco-labelling, it is not much good if the customer does not pay any attention to what is written on the label? In that context, as the Government have labelled Twyford down and Oxleas wood as environmentally important, will he have urgent discussions with his colleagues in the Department of Transport—

Order. The hon. Gentleman is trying to put one over. We are dealing with eco-labelling. If the hon. Gentleman remains with eco-labelling, he may finish his question.

Will the Minister make sure that once we label things as important, we follow what we say that we should do with them?

It would be fascinating to take a lecture on double standards from a representative of the party that has 651 standards—one for every constituency in the United Kingdom.

Should not that great success be followed by pushing eco-labelling in to other areas? The Labour party supported allowing water boards to maintain their policing role, which resulted in some of the most polluted beaches in Europe. It also supported the burning of dirty high-sulphur coal over clean gas. In short, as it is the party which puts vested interests before the environment, should not there be a special grubby eco-label for the Labour party?

I think that the Labour party and its characteristics are well known to the electorate. They do not need to be specifically labelled.

The Minister will agree that a eco-labelling scheme will be fully effective only if it goes hand in hand with a strengthening of the Trades Description Act to ensure that companies cannot make bogus environmental claims for the products that they sell. The Government said in 1990 that they would introduce legislation to strengthen the Act. They repeated that pledge to the Select Committee in 1991. That legislation would have the full support of the Opposition. Why do not the Government do it now?

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman, because this is the first time, when I have been opposite him, that he has come to the Dispatch Box with a point that is correct. We wish to amend the Trades Description Act. It is important that we do so in order that there can be no bogus claims on eco-labelling, as there are in other areas. We are giving urgent consideration to the matter and we will introduce suitable proposals as soon as parliamentary time permits us to do so.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the average council tax for a band C house in Wandsworth and for a band C house in Lambeth.

The average headline band C council tax for two adults in Wandsworth is £399, whereas in Lambeth it is £560.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information. I wonder whether he could take matters one stage further by discerning any particular pattern between high-spending councils that make iniquitous demands and any particular political party in control of them.

It is a fact that the 10 highest council taxes have been set by Labour councils. My hon. Friend will also be aware that, across the country, the average band C tax payer pays less under Conservative-controlled councils than he or she does under Labour ones.

Will the Minister confirm that the transitional relief for band C occupiers in Wandsworth is substantially higher than that for band C occupiers in Lambeth? Will he give a typical comparison between the two boroughs?

The hon. Member must surely be aware that transitional relief is a national scheme designed to go to those households that face the largest increase in bills with the change of system. It is, of course, the case that it will go rather more to those high-value property areas that had lower community charge bills. Lambeth is a relatively high-value property area, but, by golly, it is a very high community charge and council tax area.

Does my hon. Friend believe that the level of charging in Lambeth has anything to do with the way in which that council is run? Does he agree that the way in which an authority responds to allegations of maladministration and corruption is an indication of how it is run? Has my hon. Friend seen the recent report of the district auditor and has he noticed, in particular, that the officers of the council who were found guilty of fraud are still employed by it and that the direct labour organisation, having been set standards by the council to fulfil, failed to meet them but has still had its contract extended?

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not making a speech, he is asking a direct question to the Minister. This is not speech time, it is Question Time.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The news that Lambeth council had been guilty of mismanagement did not exactly burst on the world with all the surprise of the sun rising in the east. The fact of the matter is that the sorry catalogue of mismanagement, shortfalls and fiddles is probably unrivalled by any other local authority. That reflects on the officers and councillors, past and present. The people who pay the bill, are, of course, the poor people who paid the bill under rates, the community charge and now under the council tax, the residents of Lambeth.

Since the Minister is so keen on facts, has he forgotten the fact that the average household council tax under Labour is £14 less than under the Conservatives? Has he forgotten the second fact that people believed us and not them? Has he forgotten the third fact that the Conservatives had the biggest drubbing that they have had this century in the shire county elections and the fourth fact that Labour, as a result of the confidence shown by the electors in its councils, has never had a better base in the county councils than now?

I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman continues to peddle the long-discredited line about Labour councils being cheaper, when the House knows that that is an artificial and false calculation. As for what I took to be the hon. Gentleman's central point, I remind him that the total external support per head going to Wandsworth amounts to £842 and to Lambeth, £1,118. Those are massive figures and show the difference in support. They underline what my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) said—the abuse of money by Lambeth is at the heart of the problem.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will list the 20 local authorities with the highest number of empty council homes.

At the risk of spoiling a game that I know the House enjoys playing, I shall say in advance that the 20 local authorities with the highest number of properties empty for management reasons at 1 April 1992—whose names I shall shortly read out quickly—are, with two exceptions, controlled not by the Conservative party or the Liberal Democrats, but by the Labour party. They are: Manchester, Hackney, Sheffield, Southwark, Newcastle upon Tyne, Liverpool, Lambeth, Birmingham, Leeds, Tower Hamlets, Salford, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Brent, Bradford, Kirklees, Nottingham, Bristol, Camden and Islington.

My hon. Friend said that the authorities were predominantly Labour controlled. Does he agree that the list shows that the problem is one of mismanagement, once again? One way to correct the management would be for local authorities not to use direct labour organisations to carry out their repairs.

My hon. Friend is right. Those figures relate to properties that are empty for management reasons and exclude properties that have been empty for other reasons. There are ways in which local authorities can make progress. The. Housing and Urban Development Bill, which is now before the House, will oblige local authorities to put housing management out to compulsory competitive tendering, which will benefit tenants by providing higher standards of service than many of them have to put up with at present.

Is it not time that the Minister stopped using spurious and bogus figures? Should he not use figures to show the percentage of vacant properties, not absolute figures which do not take into account the size of the housing stock? Should he not use figures that do not include properties to be demolished or to undergo major refurbishment? Is the Minister aware that Sheffield has 1,800 vacant properties, of which 500 are due for demolition and 300 are due for major refurbishment? Once those are taken out of account, it means that 1·4 per cent. of the authority's properties are vacant—less than the 2 per cent. Government target figure. Is it not time that the Minister praised authorities such as Sheffield instead of condemning them as he does?

The hon. Gentleman was not listening to the answer that I gave. The figures that I have given relate to properties that are empty for management reasons and exclude properties that are about to be demolished. I shall answer questions that are tabled. The question tabled today asked me to list the local authorities with the highest number of empty council houses, and I answered that question. If the hon. Gentleman wants to ask for percentages, he should do so—then he will receive the answer.

I note that Lambeth once again appeared on that list—what can the Government do about the council? I am a resident there and the council has railed to collect £173 million in taxes. Is it not time to put in commissioners to sort the place out?

I hope that my hon. Friend will join me and other Conservative Members when, in less than 12 months' time, we go around the streets of Lambeth to bring home to the residents exactly what the present administration is costing them and persuade them to vote for Conservative councillors who will run Lambeth extremely well, as they did from 1968 to 1971.

The Minister says that the problem is due to incompetence. What does he say to the Conservative Government, 13 per cent. of whose properties are empty? When I first drew attention to the matter several years ago, 16 per cent. were empty. Of the empty properties, 18 per cent. belong to the Department of the Environment—the Minister's own Department. In Biggin Hill, boarded-up houses belonging to the Government are up for sale, so depressing the housing market, while Conservative Bromley council has forced taxpayers to put their hands in their pockets in order to keep people in unsatisfactory temporary accommodation. Why do all of us have to pay for the most incompetent landlord of all—the Government—13 per cent. of whose properties are empty? The Government make homeless people and taxpayers pay for the disgrace of homelessness.

The Department of the Environment has 20 empty properties. The hon. Gentleman cannot seek an alibi for the incompetence of Labour-controlled local authorities by sheltering behind the Ministry of Defence, which owns properties for the use of service men and their families and which, for operational reasons, must keep a number of vacancies. Local authorities build houses for people in housing need and they have no operational excuse for the high number of voids to which I just referred.

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the top 10 councils have 11,000 empty properties between them? That is more than double the number of homeless people in London and the south-east of England. What pressure will my hon. Friend put on councils to bring those properties back into use?

My hon. Friend makes the valid point that 7,500 families could be taken out of bed-and-breakfast accommodation if more local authorities were to act responsibly and efficiently and manage their homes more effectively. The subsidy system does, indeed, put pressure on local authorities to reduce the number of voids. If one looks at the progress that has been made over the past three or four years, one sees that the pressure is now working and that the number of voids is coming down.

Is the Minister aware that, with regard to the proportion of homes available to let, or available to let after minor repairs, five of the worst 10 authorities are Conservative controlled? They include the London borough of Redbridge. If the hon. Gentleman is concerned about appalling housing management in central Government—let us for a moment forget about the Ministry of Defence—let him consider the Department of Health's 14,000 homes that are empty, 15 per cent. of the total, and the Department of Transport's 666 homes that are vacant, 20 per cent. of the total.

Of all the spurious statistics I have ever seen, the list that the hon. Gentleman published this morning takes the biscuit. I am surprised that he was able to keep a straight face while asking that question. Of his top five worst councils, four have transferred their stock to housing associations, and four, between them, have 13 empty houses. According to the hon. Gentleman's twisted logic, those four authorities are worse performers than Lambeth, which has 1,000 voids. The hon. Gentleman tests the credulity of the House and of the country if he seeks to persuade us that Suffolk, Coastal is less efficient than Hackney or Lambeth.

Will my hon. Friend note that Hackney, Lambeth and Liverpool councils, all of which are on his list, are examples of extreme corruption? Is not it high time for a royal commission to investigate corruption in local government under socialism?

The remit of any such commission would be far wider than the humble responsibilities of the Minister with responsibility for housing. However, I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State will take note of my hon. Friend's suggestion.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent discussions he has held on the operation in local government of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 and the acquired rights directive.

My right hon. and learned Friend has had a number of discussions about this matter. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment set out the Government's position on 11 March.

Have not the Government failed to honour their obligation, under the acquired rights directive, to protect the rights of workers? Indeed, they face an action on this very issue in the European Court. Can the Minister give the House a guarantee that his Department will ensure that the transfer of undertakings provisions are no longer used to force workers to accept pay reductions and a worsening of their conditions of employment or get the sack? Or is he determined that his Department will play its full part in the Government's plans to turn this country into the sweat shop of Europe?

What an absurd question. The hon. Lady knows well that the Government will obey the law—the European directive and the British law as approved by the House of Commons. Will the hon. Lady and her party agree that competive tendering in local government gives value for money and better quality service? Is the Labour party aware that the auditor for Lambeth pointed out that, had it been competitively tendered, £20 million of work would have saved the taxpayers of Lambeth £5 million? Is the Labour party saying that the people of Lambeth and elsewhere should be denied that money because councils do not follow the rule of law?

Does my hon. Friend agree that the application of TUPE varies from case to case and that, contrary to the misleading impression which may have been created, unless there is a substantial transfer of personnel and premises, there are no transfers of undertakings as a result of the entirely appropriate policy of compulsory competive tendering?

My hon. Friend is right; we need to look at matters case by case. He is also right to infer that many hundreds of successful competitive tenders have been organised in local government without the regulations being deemed to aply. As a result, many taxpayers have a better deal, many better quality services are provided and in some cases people have more rewarding jobs as well.

If the Minister wants to save public money through competitive tendering, is he aware that much public money is not being saved because of the confusion that is apparent in Government Departments? Is he aware that the civil service has been told by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that the acquired rights directive, which can protect conditions of employment, should apply to contracted-out jobs, yet his Department gives the opposite advice and says that the directive need not apply? Does the Minister accept that he is rapidly becoming marooned on a dated and objectionable policy? Will he tell the House today that all Government Departments, including his own, will apply the rule of law?

I have already told the House that we intend to apply the rule of law, as we have been doing. Had the hon. Gentleman listened to my answer, he would have heard me say that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment have worked together on the guidance and advice. On 11 March, they issued guidance and advice that represent the Government's position. I wish that the hon. Gentleman would read it. It is clear, good advice which can provide value for money for central and local taxpayers.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the respective levels of central Government grant per household to the London boroughs of (a) Hackney and (b) Wandsworth.

The amount of external support—that is, revenue support grant plus non-domestic rates plus inner-London education grant—per household is £3,159 for Hackney and £1,984 for Wandsworth.

Does my hon. Friend agree that those figures show yet again that poor quality of service and high costs, such as apply in the Labour borough of Hackney, have nothing to do with the level of Government grant and everything to do with the failure to improve services and efficiency? If local authorities want to emulate Conservative boroughs such as Wandsworth, they should bring in efficiency savings, cut out fraud and stop Labour councillors claiming expenses at the rate of £300 a week, or £15,000 a head a year, money which would be better spent on people in need in their areas.

My hon. Friend, who is very knowledgeable on these matters, made a number of telling points. He might also have pointed out that local authorities could also emulate the example of Wandsworth council in its collection record for the community charge. Hackney, in particular, has a poor collection performance: in the past two years, it was 53 per cent. and 57 per cent.; in the current year, it expects to collect only 91 per cent.

Does the Minister accept that although he and his hon. Friends may wish to concentrate on a few examples of local authorities in London, the people who are informed about local government and councillors of all persuasions in urban areas of England outside London are convinced that the Government's disregard for unemployment and economic reality in their calculation of grants to local authorities is little better than corrupt?

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman spoilt his question in the last part of it. As he knows, the Government are carefully reviewing the standard spending assessments and we are receiving submissions from councils of all political parties. We are carefully considering those submissions and meeting councillors as well. There is no question of the current system being corrupt. It is trying to do what is arguably absolutely impossible, which is to deliver a distribution mechanism that is approved by all local authorities. We seek to make it recapture the inevitable expense faced by authorities. The system does that at present, and if it can do it even better in future, I shall be very pleased.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to announce the results of the current review of his Department's role as sponsoring Department for the construction industry.

The review is due to be completed next month and I expect to announce the results shortly thereafter.

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that trade associations and the many hon. Members who support the objectives of the Manufacturing and Construction Industries Alliance look to his Department not just to regulate the construction industry but to encourage it? Does he accept that his Department could act positively by removing administrative burdens, abolishing the archaic stamp duty on the sale of new houses and investing substantially in the improvement and modernisation of our housing stock and in major development projects?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his characteristically modest shopping list. I entirely accept that part of my Department's duty is to encourage the construction industry. We are certainly doing that and I am sure that my hon. Friend will join me in welcoming today's extremely encouraging news that total construction orders in the first quarter of this year were 22 per cent. up on the previous quarter.

If the Minister wants to support the construction industry, why has he not removed the completely insane rules that prevent local councils from spending capital receipts from council house sales on building and renovating much-needed homes? In Glanford and Scunthorpe, which are not regarded as high-stress areas, investment by housing associations is very low. Both those councils, one of them Tory controlled, could advantageously use their capital receipts to provide decent homes and building jobs and provide support for the construction industry.

I am astonished by the hon. Gentleman's question because, of course, from this year councils can use all their capital receipts for the purposes to which he referred. The councils that complained most in the past about their inability to spend capital receipts almost always did not take advantage, of the extent to which they were permitted, even under the old rules, to spend those receipts. The hon. Gentleman should have had regard to the facts before he put his question.

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is important that local construction and building companies in areas such as mine should have a fair opportunity to compete for council work? I welcome the Department's current review of Canterbury city council and nine others to discover why their direct labour organisations are making such enormous losses. I refer my right hon. and learned Friend to the fact that 15 of the last 19 major contracts were given to the DLO, although in not one of them did the DLO offer the best tender.

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to these matters. We are reviewing them and shall do so carefully to make sure that the people of Canterbury do not lose as a consequence of any failure by the city council to follow the rules.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to provide local authorities with additional resources for the refurbishment and redesign of housing estates.

We provide substantial resources to local authorities every year for capital spending on housing. The housing investment programme for this year is £1·75 billion, and a further £356 million is provided for the estate action programme and £87 million for housing action trusts. Local authorities may also draw on almost all capital receipts generated before the end of this year, which provides them with a major opportunity for additional spending on housing projects.

Will the Minister admit that he is involved in the ridiculous business of giving with one hand and taking away with the other? An excellent local authority that I visited recently had a scheme to develop an estate, not least with a view to preventing crime, for which some money for phase 1 has been obtained from the Government. A cut in the authority's capital budget brought about by the Department meant that it has lost even more than it had gained from the grant. What would the Minister say to that authority? Is not that a ridiculous Government recycling operation that constrains councils and prevents them from doing what is needed in their communities?

What the hon. Gentleman says does not accord with the facts. This year, 167 new estate action schemes will be started. There are 225 existing schemes, many of which involve extensive estate refurbishment over a number of years. The regeneration of those estates will cost millions of pounds. We are investing in many of the worst run-down estates in the country. We are determined to ensure that every housing estate is brought up to a very good standard.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the estate action schemes that he has initiated in my constituency—in Brighouse, Elland and Todmorden. Many of those initiatives will stop estates from declining to the stage that has been reached in other parts of the country.

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Estate action schemes also enable tenants to become much more involved in the running of their estates. The means and the resources that we are providing ensure that tenants have a much greater influence over the homes and the areas in which they live.

Does the Minister not accept that the reality is that many excellent estate action schemes have been put in jeopardy because insufficient capital resources have been provided to enable local authority grant applications to be met in full? In many cases, central Government assumptions about anticipated capital receipts led to grants being made that were far below what local authorities had hoped to get. In housing partnership schemes, bids totalled £142 million, but grants amounted to only 20·71 per cent. of that total. Does the Minister not accept that estate action schemes cannot be carried out if local authorities do not have the money?

Last year, Burnley had an estate action scheme for the Bardon estate. This year, Burnley has had money for an estate action scheme for the Trafalgar Gardens estate. The reality is that this year 167 new estate action schemes will be started and we are investing £356 million in those schemes. About £1 billion has been invested in recent years in estate action, which has enabled estate action schemes to be carried out on no fewer than 1,000 estates.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he next plans to meet representatives of the Association of County Councils to discuss the powers of local authorities.

The ACC has not asked for such a discussion. The next of my regular informal two-monthly meetings with the chairmen of the three local authority associations will take place on 7 June, and the ACC is at liberty to raise this or any other issue it wishes at that meeting.

Have not the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his Government set out deliberately to undermine county government? Why did the Government not listen to the warnings from the counties that the poll tax—the right hon. and learned Gentleman's biggest mistake—would end in tears? Why does he not take this opportunity—his last appearance at the Dispatch Box as Secretary of State for the Environment—to acknowledge that he was wrong on the poll tax? As a Llanelli boy, born and bred, would he not say that he is in some small danger of exchanging his present post with that of the Secretary of State for Wales?

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has to go back to the community charge because he finds so little in contemporary policies of which he can complain. When the Opposition go back to the community charge, we know that they are absolutely bereft of contemporary issues that they can raise.

When considering the powers of local authorities, will my right hon. and learned Friend give some thought to the needs of people who live in areas such as Hackney and Lambeth, which are bywords for inefficiency and incompetence and, often, for corruption? Given the fact that Lambeth—[Interruption.]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not in order. If he relates his question to the Association of County Councils and the powers of local authorities, he must be heard, but questions must be in order.

When discussing the matter with the Association of County Councils, will my right hon. and learned Friend place much stronger emphasis on the possibility of bringing in special commissioners to deal with councils where the ratepayer is not properly protected from the depredations of councils such as Lambeth and Hackney?

As my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing, Planning and Construction pointed out a few moments ago, voters in the areas to which my hon. Friend has referred will have their opportunity within months to make it clear at the ballot box that they want no more of the disreputable government from which they suffered at Labour's hands.

The Secretary of State may be about to lose his voice, but I hope that he has not lost his memory. Does he not remember what happened on 6 May? Does he not agree that Labour's stunning success in the recent county council elections and the humiliating defeat of the Conservatives represent a powerful message from the electors of Britain, who do not want local government to be kicked around by the present Administration?

The hon. Gentleman knows full well that, far from undermining local government, we have given it new powers and responsibilities. Far from imposing new controls on local government, one of the first things that the Government did in 1980 was sweep away 300 detailed controls on local government. Things may be different in Leicester, but I have never heard this issue raised on the doorstep.

When considering the affairs of local authorities with the Association of County Councils, will my right hon. and learned Friend ascertain whether it has ever discussed local authorities' input with regard to security in prisons in their areas? Is he aware that yesterday five prisoners—serious offenders—escaped from Saughton prison—[Interruption.]

Order. The House is obviously demob-happy; it had better pull itself together. Let us move on to a question from another Scot.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what further steps Her Majesty's Government proposes to take to combat the depletion of the ozone layer; and if he will make a statement.

These Scots get everywhere.

What the Government have done today is, of course, welcome. Is the Minister aware, however, that, despite the diplomatic and political moves that have been made, the scientific community is still extremely concerned about whether we are moving far and fast enough to deal with the degradation of the ozone layer? Will he consider working with his opposite numbers at the Department of Trade and Industry in trying to take practical steps, such as encouraging the manufacture of propane refrigerators in this country? Many such refrigerators are manufactured in Germany, and they will be imported in great numbers if we do not wake up to the opportunities available in this country.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks about our diplomatic and ministerial progress in negotiations. The Copenhagen agreement, which we reached last November, had a phase-out date of 2030 for HCFCs; I shall be arguing for an ultimate phase-out date of 2015, at the latest.

Will my hon. Friend note that in many other countries—for example, the United States and Japan—legislation is passed to create markets that industrialists can then follow, such as catalytic converters for cars, in which Johnson Matthey had a world lead? Britain has nothing so persuasive as the legislation in the United States or Japan; if it did, that would help to increase our domestic technology.

I accept that in certain circumstances creating a high target or objective, or even introducing regulation, can lead the market in a particular direction. However, I am much more concerned to point out to British industry that we expect the size of the global market in environmental goods and technology to rise to $300 billion by the turn of the century. That is larger than the world's global aerospace market.

Will the Minister confirm that depletion of the ozone layer led to a 40 per cent. increase in skin cancer in Britain between 1979 and 1991? Are not there now 28,000 cases a year, with the numbers rising? As well as supporting the most stringent conditions in the forthcoming EC directive, will the hon. Gentleman institute a programme of public education so that the public are aware of the need to protect themselves and their children from the growing risk of skin cancer caused by depletion of the ozone layer?

I am glad that someone has raised the shibboleth of skin cancer in the northern hemisphere as a consequence of depletion of the ozone layer. The fact is that depletion of the ozone layer in the northern hemisphere occurs only in winter and spring—February, March and into April. Because at that time of the year the angle of the sun is so low on the horizon, there is very little extra ultraviolet radiation coming through. The danger arises for those who take holidays in very sunny climates.