Julie James: Social housing in Wales is built to a standard to ensure accessibility for disabled people. In addition, we are investing in new specialist housing through the integrated care fund, and we provide a range of grant programmes to enable the adaptation of existing social housing to meet disabled tenants’ needs.
Julie James: Well, thank you for that, David Rowlands. You made two points that I think require an answer—one of which was made by Mike Hedges and I neglected to mention it, which is the issue about the supply of social housing across Wales. You will know that since the removal of the cap on the housing revenue accounts in local government, not quite a year ago now, we've worked very hard with local...
Julie James: Thank you for that series of questions, Mike, and, again, I'd broadly agree with the thrust of your questions. So, just to do that last one first, the scheme that Lee Waters is promoting to bring houses back into beneficial use means that you have to live in it yourself for five years in order not to lose the grant. What this is doing is allowing you to rent it out through this scheme, so...
Julie James: Yes, again, I largely agree with the premise of your questions. So, just to be really clear, what we're asking them to do is accept the local housing allowance as rent in return for a guarantee of that rent without voids or any other detriment across a five-year period. We know from conversations with the Residential Landlords Association and other landlords through Rent Smart Wales that...
Julie James: Thank you. As usual, David, we agree about much more than we disagree about. So, I completely agree with you that we need to have a better relationship with the private rented sector. Part of that will be of course bringing into force our new Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, which does give people longer security of tenure anyway, just in the normal private rented sector. But this is an...
Julie James: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This statement provides details of the trial of a new scheme aimed at increasing the housing stock available to local authorities in discharging their housing duties, and, more particularly, their Part 2 Housing (Wales) Act 2014 duties. Local authorities' discharge of these duties has done much to prevent individuals and families from becoming homeless....
Julie James: I welcome that intervention. I'll just finish the thought I was having, which was basically I'm keen to ensure community-led housing groups can access capital funding of whatever sort. So, if you're aware of groups that want capital funding of that sort, even if we haven't got a bespoke fund, it’s worth getting in touch, because I'm very keen to support them in partnership with an RSL or...
Julie James: I'm so sorry, Mark; I didn't see you.
Julie James: And I think Mike Hedges hit the nail on the head, actually: there's a sort of misapprehension about what it means. But I've actually visited a west side apartment in New York that's a co-operative, and it looked like a penthouse to me, is all I can say. So, I do think there's a misconception—he's quite right about that. What it also does is it allows us to drive different models and types...
Julie James: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and it's a real pleasure to have the opportunity to talk about the role that co-operative and community-led housing can have in meeting the housing needs of our communities here in Wales. All types of community-led housing, including co-operative housing, can empower Welsh citizens and provide locally driven housing solutions for local communities. I've...
Julie James: I have looked at the figures, and you are, very neatly, avoiding the point that your Government has repeatedly refused to allow council houses to be built using the proceeds of the sale of council houses. [Interruption.] You diminished the supply. I was also in London 40 years ago—40 years ago was when the Thatcher Government came in and decimated the supply of social housing. So, there is...
Julie James: Certainly.
Julie James: Yes, we do have some evidence. The numbers are problematic, because we do them in spot checks and we do them in rough-sleep accounts. And we know, for example, that it's very difficult to get women in rough-sleep accounts. We know that because they tend to walk all night and sleep in the day because it's safer and so on. So, the numbers are problematic. We do have data. We have got...
Julie James: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I want to start off by welcoming David Melding's first remarks about working across the Chamber, and to echo the First Minister's welcome of good ideas from any source, and echo them. So, I think there is much to be commended in the Conservatives' plan, and also, actually, in Plaid Cymru's plan. And I think we do have some shared agendas across the...
Julie James: Formally.
Julie James: That is not true.
Julie James: Sorry, Llywydd, can I just say one thing? I beg your indulgence. In response to something that Rhun brought up in my question session last week, I inadvertently said that Llinos—I was very praising of Llinos, and I'd like to reiterate those comments, but I inadvertently said she was a member of the finance sub-group of the partnership council, and I just want to correct the record and say...
Julie James: Thank you for that, John. I concur broadly with the thrust of that. You will know from various interchanges we've had on this that the road map recommends further work is required to understand what the capacity issues and what the resources to undertake that kind of testing might be in Wales, and we've got continual engagement with the UK Government and their competence steering group on the...
Julie James: Well, thank you very much for that. I broadly agree with everything you've said. We are working, exactly as you say, on a comprehensive ethical policy. The White Paper will cover off some of the building safety bits of that. There are other bits around standards and green infrastructure and all the rest of it that we also want to put in place. It is a near monopoly situation, but, actually,...
Julie James: Yes. So, just to be clear on the loan, I'm not talking about loaning it to the residents; I'm talking about loaning it to the developers, because some of them are saying that they can't afford it. So, I agree with that, but we've got to work through the system. So, I completely agree with you that the people who are actually resident should not be paying for it, just to be clear. But that's...
