The Minister said that in 1982 there were 29,000 applicants — that followed nearly a four year period of his own Administration — and in 1987 there were 18,000 applicants. Is he now telling the House that if his Government are in office for four years there will be 30,000 applicants on the list? Is the Minister also telling us there is no need for extra housing, for instance, in my own constituency where there have been only eight housing starts in 1988? He says there is no housing problem but that is not what I am hearing from my constituents.

If there is no housing problem there is no need to build houses.

The Minister is creating a housing problem.

If there is a housing problem it is being dealt with, but the numbers indicate that a problem does not exist. I have conceded the point that the question of housing needs to be monitored on a continual basis. It has been agreed here many times, not just by this Government but also by the last Government, that the trend is that we do not have the same demand for local authority housing. If and when that trend changes and there is a demand which requires to be met, then of course the matter will have to be looked at in a different way.