asked the Minister of Health if he will give particulars of the restrictions in the housing programmes announced by an official of the Welsh Board of Health at a Caernarvon conference of local authorities held on Saturday, 29th March, in respect of the following local authorities in Caernarvonshire: Llandudno, Conway, Penmaenmawr, Llanfairfechan, Bangor, Caernarvon, Pwllheli and Nevin; and when it is hoped that the original programmes may again be authorised.

I hope to publish the programmes for each local authority in the Housing Return for March.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the cuts imposed are so serious as to cause housing conditions to be chaotic, and is it not an admission of failure? Further, will he tell us when he can restore these cuts—will it be within 12 months, a year or two years?

No cuts are being imposed. What has happened is that, as was announced in the White Paper on Housing, the physical capacity of the country for dwelling houses has been assessed at 240,000 houses in a year, and that figure has been broken down into regional elements. So what has really happened is an adjustment of the housing programme to the physical capacity of the building industry.

Is the Minister aware, at any rate taking Wiltshire, that if one makes a calculation of the size of the programme in relation to the population in Wiltshire it shows that the rural districts will have far less than the average that they should have over the whole country, and why are the rural districts being treated worse?

In fact the population in the rural districts is being treated rather better, but population is not the sole basis on which to estimate the number of houses to be allotted to a particular area because, if we did that, we might allot more houses than the building industry would be able to build in that area in any given time.