Julie James: Yes, well, the letter goes on to say, 'However, my officials have been in touch with Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council regarding the issues you raise. I am able to offer the following advice.' And then there are several more paragraphs of the advice that we were able to offer. I'm sorry if that wasn't what you were expecting, but, obviously, we can't do individual casework from the...
Julie James: Yes. This Government is committed to tackling homelessness, in all its forms, in Wales. This commitment is supported by over £20 million this year alone. Our strategy, published last month, sets the policy framework for actions to prevent homelessness and, where it cannot be prevented, to ensure it is rare, brief and unrepeated.
Julie James: We have a range of measures, as I've just said in response to David Rees, and we're also looking at a suite of other measures across the Government. So, as I mentioned, we've got the joint housing and social services group, which is sitting under the homelessness action group and the ministerial group, to look at the range of options available for young people leaving or have left care, aged...
Julie James: Yes, I absolutely agree with that. I don't know the specifics, and I would invite David Rees to write to me with the specifics of the case that he's mentioning. But there are a range of things that are provided through accommodation for young care leavers, and some of those are actual care. I'm afraid I don't know what's included in the rent that you mentioned—if there's a care package...
Julie James: We've invested an additional £10 million this year to tackle youth homelessness, including funding specific projects for care leavers. Our focus is on strengthening the arrangements in place to successfully transition young people from care into independent living, with a joint housing and social services group driving forward this work.
Julie James: We're not actually in the game of moving functions from one to the other. You can make an argument that social care should be in health, or the whole thing should be together in one body or whatever. Generally speaking, I'm a proponent of the view that it's not the structure that matters but the working arrangements and the culture. So, we're going down the regional partnership board route...
Julie James: Public health is actually in my colleague Vaughan Gething's portfolio and not mine. So, much of what you've just talked about is in Vaughan Gething's portfolio but, in general, we've been using the regional partnership boards to achieve the same result, because it's not just about transferring functions from one part of the public sector to the other; it's about getting the whole public...
Julie James: The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 require public bodies, including local government and health boards, to think and act differently, putting collaboration at the heart of how they work. This includes, but extends far beyond, their work on public services boards.
Julie James: I think, again, we agree on the base—obviously, the way out of poverty is to give people more money. Their chance to earn it, in good, fair employment, is obviously the best way to do that, so that people are not reliant on benefits—so, paying a real living wage, and all that sort of stuff. So I think we're on the same page on that. We are awaiting a piece of research, but I'm afraid I...
Julie James: I'll talk to my colleague Hannah Blythyn, who takes a lead on welfare issues, but it's one of the issues that we've asked the homelessness action group to look at as well, because they're going to do three more reports. As you know, they've done the homelessness report in the run-up to Christmas for us. But it's one of the things we've asked them to look at as well. And I think we're still...
Julie James: Yes, I agree. And I think there's a real problem—we were discussing only in this Chamber, I think the last time I was answering questions, or in one of the statements on housing—around what the local housing allowance does to people in the private rented sector as well. Because, as you know, universal credit is capped at the local housing allowance level, and that's been frozen for four...
Julie James: So, I'm afraid the headline of the article that you've obviously read is rather misleading. If you go on to read what I actually said, the headline isn't quite it. What I said was, when we have built enough social homes in Wales, when any person in Wales who wants a socially rented home can rock up to a council and say, 'I would like to rent from you, please' and they can show you a portfolio...
Julie James: Well, again, we can find some areas of agreement and some areas of disagreement in those remarks, David Melding. So, recently I met with one of the very biggest house builders; we had a full and frank exchange. I've just had a letter back off them thanking me for the very positive meeting and indications of the way that we can go forward together with this ambition. And I think you share my...
Julie James: No, I wouldn't agree with that at all. I stand by what I said. I said they were in danger of creating the slums of the future. If you have an estate of houses that has no infrastructure available to it, where people have to drive to work, where the houses are poorly built, and, frankly, we've seen examples of that from the big house builders across Wales, where not even the most routine of...
Julie James: Yes, I accept the point that he makes. Unfortunately, we do have a large range of houses that were built under those circumstances that then are fairly rapidly sold on as open private market housing, and the issue is how we can get a balance to do that. I've been very keen to explore with councils from across Wales how we can get more social housing into those areas. I'm very keen that young...
Julie James: Yes, I certainly would. I'm not aware of it, and if Darren Millar wants to write to me with specific details, I'm very happy to look into that. I don't know the specifics, so I can't really comment, but in general permitted development rights are only available where there is already a residential or other structure that carries the permitted development rights with it. They wouldn't normally...
Julie James: Certainly. Permitted development rights are an important tool to remove minor developments from the need for planning permission. They allow local planning authorities to concentrate on larger, more complex applications that create homes and jobs.
Julie James: Yes. Paul Davies will know that we've been really working very hard to build a lot more social homes in Wales; it's been a significant priority for this First Minister to accelerate both the pace and scale of social home building. At the moment, most social homes in Wales are built by registered social landlords because, as he will know, there were restrictions on the housing revenue accounts...
Julie James: Certainly. Our housing priorities for Pembrokeshire are the same as for all of Wales. I want to see far more much-needed social housing built in truly mixed communities, homelessness being proactively addressed, decarbonisation being tackled, and market housing that is of good size and quality.
Julie James: This Government is committed to tackling homelessness across all areas of Wales and is investing over £20 million this year alone. Following the publication of the expert homelessness action group’s first report, our immediate focus is reducing rough-sleeping this winter, with a particular focus on assertive outreach and rapid rehousing.
