Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:35 pm on 20 September 2016.
Well, our target is 20,000. Some of that will be met, as I said, through Help to Buy. There will be different models that will be appropriate for different people—I think that’s true—and we need to be innovative in terms of seeing whether there are ways in which we can acquire existing houses—not compulsory, of course—in terms of making them available to the local market. These are all issues that will need to be examined.
We know in some parts of rural Wales—Powys, for example, lost half of its public housing stock in the 1980s and 1990s, with enormous consequences. I’ve met people who can’t live in the villages that they’re from—they’re living in mobile homes as a result of it. Well, we can’t tolerate that; it’s a social justice issue, as far as the future is concerned.
So, yes, we have the target of 20,000 homes. There will be a mixture of different ways as to how we reach that target, but we are determined to reach it.