I feel as if I’m in a privileged position, as the housing spokesperson, because there is a commitment—a specific commitment—in the programme for government that I can react to. In fact, I was quite pleased—possibly even excited—when I read that the Welsh Government aims to deliver 20,000 additional affordable homes during this Assembly term. I then looked into this in a little more detail, and I pressed the First Minister. Unfortunately, I was too far down the order paper yesterday to actually get called, but as is our practice, my oral question was then subject to a written answer from the First Minister. He has stated that the commitment for 20,000 additional affordable homes leaves the Welsh Government’s general target for new homes built every year in Wales unchanged. It remains at 8,700—although, you’re not achieving that, incidentally. I have to say that I find it very strange that, in the programme for government, there’s a commitment to building additional affordable homes, and yet the general target for house building is unchanged. It’s been roughly what it is now for five years. Perhaps greater minds than mine will be able to cope with this sort of level of paradox, but I do hope that the Minister can give us some clarification later when she responds.

This is not a trivial point. We are facing a housing crisis. It’s one that’s gone on for a number of years. In the run-up to the Assembly elections, the Confederation of British Industry said,

‘For too many years, we’ve not been building the new homes Wales needs. This has led to rising prices, undermining our economic competitiveness and Wales’ reputation as a destination for investment.’

I completely agree with that. Also, house building is an excellent economic multiplier. It uses local resources, local labour, largely, and many SMEs, and we should be building more homes at the moment.

Evidence points to the need to build at least 12,000 homes a year in Wales, and when I saw the commitment to build an additional 20,000 affordable homes in this Assembly term, I thought, ‘Ah, they’ve now accepted the target of at least 12,000 homes. At last there is a real advance here, and we can welcome it’. Because that would take your target up to 12,700. But no. Somehow, the word ‘additional’ in the First Minister’s dictionary means something different to what the rest of us, I suspect, take as its common meaning.

Unsurprisingly, the housing crisis has led to incredibly high prices by any historical comparison. The average house price at the moment in Wales is £173,000. Have we lost the ability to be shocked by some of these data, which go to the fundamentals of life—the desire and need for a home? The average price now is £173,000. That is a remarkable multiple of average salary, at 6.4—6.4 times the average salary to get the average house in Wales. Something is very, very wrong about how we meet housing demand.

The housing crisis hits younger people particularly hard. There are currently 150,000 20 to 34-year-olds still living at home. Family homes are all too often out of reach of those who most need them, i.e. people in their 30s, when they are raising families. The tragedy here is that we could be doing something, and we could be doing something very economically productive in addition to meeting that basic housing demand.

Can I just finish, Deputy Presiding Officer, by saying I’m very disappointed that the Welsh Government has now the Executive power and has not chosen to match the ambition of the Welsh Conservative party as outlined in our manifesto when we said we would have brought forth a housing access Bill to help young people onto the housing ladder, promote a more lively housing market, and boost the construction industry? That is what Wales needs. Get to it.