The next item on our agenda is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children on the Abolition of the Right to Buy and Associated Rights (Wales) Bill. I call on the Cabinet Secretary, Carl Sargeant.

Thank you, Llywydd. I was pleased yesterday to introduce the Abolition of the Right to Buy and Associated Rights (Wales) Bill, together with the explanatory memorandum, to the National Assembly for Wales. Our supply of social housing is under considerable pressure. Between 1 April 1981 and 31 March 2016, 139,100 local authority and housing association homes—that is 45 per cent of the 1981 social housing stock—were sold under the right to buy and right to acquire. The reduction in the stock during that period is forcing many vulnerable people to wait longer for a home today, and according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, developing and protecting social housing is one of the best ways in which housing policy can be used to tackle poverty. Given the pressures on social housing and the need to build more homes, the time has come to end the right to buy as one of the ways to address the pressures. As well as abolishing the right to buy, the Bill will encourage social landlords to invest in new social housing, safe in the knowledge that it won’t be at risk of having to be sold after only a few years. The Bill has been developed following consultation on a White Paper in 2015. A wide range of stakeholders, including young people, have also been engaged through workshops. I would like to place on record today my thanks to all who have contributed to the development of that process.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

The responses from stakeholders, including Shelter Cymru, local authorities and housing associations, show clear support for the aims of the Bill. The Bill will protect the social housing stock for rent by people who are unable to buy or rent a home via the private market. This includes many vulnerable people who benefit greatly from the safe, secure and affordable homes that our social housing provides. In summary, the Bill will abolish the right to buy, the preserved right to buy and the right to acquire for social housing tenants. The rights will end for new homes not previously let in the social housing sector two months after the Bill receives Royal Assent. To ensure that tenants are aware of the effect of the Bill, abolition of rights on existing properties will not take place until at least one year after the Bill receives Royal Assent. All affected tenants of social housing will be informed in writing within two months of Royal Assent, and the Bill complements the Welsh Government’s wider aims of a more prosperous and fairer Wales. It will assist in tackling poverty and it will help to preserve a stock of safe, secure and affordable housing for use by people on modest incomes or who are vulnerable.

The legislation to abolish the right to buy and right to acquire supports other action being taken by the Welsh Government to increase the supply of housing—for example, setting the ambitious target of 20,000 affordable homes during this term of Government. The Welsh Government remains committed to helping people on modest incomes to own their own homes too, for example via the Help to Buy—Wales scheme. Help to Buy—Wales is now firmly established, and our £290 million investment in the second phase will support the construction of over 6,000 new homes by 2021.This has been widely welcomed also by aspiring homeowners and housebuilders alike.

We are strengthening schemes that support low-cost home ownership, but not at the expense of reducing the social housing stock, and not via schemes that, in the long-run, can end up costing tenants, and all of us, more than the social rented alternative. There is evidence that many properties sold under the right to buy eventually end up in the private sector. When that happens, that can involve higher costs for tenants, and where housing benefit is claimed, that can cost more to the public purse. I recognise that some people will oppose the Bill, pointing to the contribution the right to buy has made in assisting tenants to get home ownership. But we need to consider those apparent benefits in the context of the housing system as a whole. I am concerned to encourage as many people as possible into home ownership also. This Bill ensures we safeguard the investment made in social housing over many generations so that it can be used to support the most vulnerable families now and in the future.

Llywydd, our manifesto commitment to end the right to buy will contribute to a fairer Wales by helping those for whom the housing market doesn’t work. The Bill will help make a real difference to many people’s lives. I look forward to the wider debate surrounding this Bill and I look forward to the contribution of Members and the many stakeholder groups who I know want to see this Bill become law.

I have to start by saying quite directly that this is a very sad day for Wales. After all, nearly 140,000 families have benefitted from the right to buy since 1980 and home ownership is an aspiration that tens of thousands continue to have across Wales. Now, an important route for them will be closed. If there was ever a public policy that was in endorsed year in, year out by public acclamation it is this: 140,000 families.

Jenny Rathbone rose—

This is a statement—

There are no interventions on a statement, sorry.

Indeed, I think one can reasonably claim that the right to buy has been the most popular housing policy in British history and particularly popular, incidentally, in Labour’s traditional heartland. I’ll leave that dilemma to you and your colleagues.

You’ve also selected the wrong target. We need to build more homes—many more homes. That’s what should be taking up our time at the moment. We need annual house building in the region of 12,000 to 15,000 in the next generation, just to make up ground. We are currently struggling to build the Welsh Government’s target of 8,700 new homes a year. The last time we achieved that inadequate target was 2007-08. In his statement the Cabinet Secretary said the Welsh Government aims to provide 20,000 affordable homes during this term. But that is only 2,500 more than previous plans. Now here’s the truth of the matter: about 250 homes were subject to the right to buy on an annual basis in the last five years. This has declined considerably as the benefits on offer have been reduced, but it is still an important policy and one I think more people should have access to—250 homes each year for the last five years. Yet, we are falling short of our house building targets—or need, anyway—by something like 6,000 houses a year. That’s our undersupply at the minute and I just think it’s shocking that a Government chooses to withdraw the right to buy and not concentrate on building more homes.

Can I just say that if the Government had concentrated on reforming the right to buy, you would have had support from us? Because no policy is fixed and final. Even the most successful policies need adjustment and we would have looked at ways to make the right to buy even better for the twenty-first century. I think all of us would have agreed, for instance, that all receipts from right to buy should be reinvested in social housing and that is something that should have been done from the start, frankly, and may have avoided some of the controversies.

And now my questions. Unfortunately, Deputy Presiding Officer, we will have to oppose this Bill and subject it to very extensive scrutiny. It has been brought forward despite the fact that the right for local authorities to suspend the right to buy has only been taken up by three, with two more pending. So, 17 out of the 22 have not actually activated the suspension and now you are forcing their hand. I would like to know, Cabinet Secretary, whether sections 6 and 7 that are contained in the Bill relate to the commencement or the actual implementation of the Bill. This means, as you’ve said, that there will be a period of notice of one year on the existing social housing stock and that would allow tenants currently in social housing to consider whether they should exercise their right to buy. But I would like to know if this notice period will also apply to those local authorities that have already suspended the right to buy, or whether it’s not going to be comprehensive.

Can I finish just by commending the Government on one thing, and that’s the quality of the explanatory memorandum? Because this will help us scrutinise the Bill effectively, and I do think, Deputy Presiding Officer, that the legislature is greatly assisted when the Executive exercises this sort of candour. So, on that, I do commend you.

I thank the Member for his contribution. I was not expecting anything less, but I was hoping that the content in David Melding’s contribution would have extolled some more detail in the fact that I understand that there are political differences between the Conservative policy and the Labour policy in this space—and I wasn’t expecting any support in that field. But the Member suggested that we are focusing on the wrong area. This abolition of the right to buy is only part of a suite of tools to enhance the housing market. We are investing heavily in our housing stock. Over the last term of Government, we exceeded our targets of building social housing with local RSLs, and I’m encouraged that already we are seeing local authorities starting to build new council properties in constituencies. Indeed, my own in Flintshire, and that of Hannah Blythyn, are already on the way with people living in those homes. We need to secure those for the future.

We have lost 45 per cent of social housing stock since 1981. This is significant, and I’m glad the Member recognised that part of the problem with this is about the Treasury rules that applied in terms of the lack of ability to reinvest back into social housing. Actually, our money from here went back to London, so we lost on both levels; we lost social housing but also lost the finances to reinvest—a double-whammy for Wales. So, that’s why we are introducing this scheme as part of a package; a suite of things.

The Member asked a very specific question on the issue of authorities that are already under suspension and will the 12 months allow them to have grounds for application during that. That will not be the case. The suspension period that is starting now will continue during the introduction as well, so the scheme will not apply for the five-year suspension period that applies to those authorities. There are more than three; I’d just also correct the Member on his application. There was Carmarthen in January of 2015, Swansea in April of 2015, Anglesey in September of 2016 and Flintshire in February of 2017. Denbighshire is already being considered also, and another two authorities are seeking a potential application. We’ve had some discussions with them also. So, a significant number have already sought to suspend this on a temporary basis.

I’d like to say that we support this Bill and the policy intent behind it. It’s been a long-standing position of Plaid Cymru and we’re looking forward to the scrutiny process. I will say in reaction to the Conservatives that many people cannot simply afford to buy their own homes, and we always need social housing for that purpose. I wouldn’t want to seek to try and play working class people against other people in their own communities, because I think that’s irresponsible. The intentions of this policy are the right intentions and I think that it’s one that we should try and support, although I understand that there will be ideological reasons why people in this room will not.

One of the questions I wanted to ask was: are you planning to create more mixed communities where housing is a mix of social and private in relation to this particular piece of legislation? I know that in the past, maybe there have been communities where there’s been more of a propensity for people to buy in a certain area of a council estate and not in another area of that estate, and then it’s intensified the issues around social housing and the right to buy. So, I was wanting to ask on that.

Obviously, by giving notice that right to buy is going to be abolished, there will be existing tenants thinking of buying who will start to look for ways to finance this, and this potentially puts people into a vulnerable situation. There have been numerous examples over the years of companies providing the finance to help people take advantage of the right to buy that then evict the tenants when the finance isn’t repaid, knowing that they have equity in an asset that was acquired for far below market value, and would have probably risen then as a consequence. So, what actions will you be taking to minimise these risks as we approach the end of right to buy?

Your statement also mentions the Help to Buy—Wales scheme as support for people to get on the ladder, but this scheme only applies to new builds. So, last year, the all-party parliamentary group for excellence in the built environment reported on the quality of new-build houses throughout the UK, and they found that 93 per cent of buyers report problems to their builders, and of these, 35 per cent report 11 or more problems. So, now, there are questions about whether the National House Building Council is able to appropriately resolve these complaints and ensure that new builds are fit for purpose. So, is the Welsh Government planning to examine this report and take action against poor-quality new builds? And given these problems, is it really appropriate to restrict Help to Buy to just new builds?

My final question, at the moment—of course, we’ll be scrutinising this Bill on the communities committee on which I sit—is: are you satisfied that a year is enough time to provide scope for people who are in the process, mid process, of right to buy? I know that Scotland took a two-year decision when they were allowing people to still put forward cases to buy their homes. So, I would want to be satisfied that you are giving tenants the correct information, timely information and that they understand their rights, because this is integral, because it’s changing, fundamentally, and that we can encourage people to understand, via, perhaps, a public campaign, as to why you’re taking this decision to do this as part of a Government initiative.

I thank the Member for her contribution and I welcome her party’s commitment to support the Bill process, moving forward. The Member is right about the mix of communities, but we have to remember that 45 per cent of the stock has already been sold and has now gone into the private sector, so it’s very diverse from what it originally started out as in the first place. So, we must plan better in terms of the way we create communities, and that’s part of the planning guidance that is issued. The creation of new social housing, which is being developed by RSLs and local authorities, is, again, about how it satisfies local need, which is important to engage local communities in.

On the Help to Buy—Wales programme, I’m interested in the Member’s comments with regard to the quality of some of the builds. I’ll look at that report carefully. I would not want to be funding any organisation that is providing poor-quality properties. We recently invested up to £20 million in an innovation fund for new housing ideas and concepts, on which we’re having some great responses back. I hope that—alongside this Bill, I said there’s a suite of tools that will help us develop new opportunities, and the innovation programme, alongside the social housing grant will also add to the opportunities that will be given in the housing division.

The one-year period of respite after the introduction—I’m confident of the ability of tenants to act, should they wish to do so, in terms of purchasing, but I would also be mindful of this in terms of our engagement with tenants. So, we will write to all tenants within the two-month period of the Bill receiving Royal Assent. But I think it’s also something that you may want to scrutinise us on about the detail after that event, about making sure that we give confidence to the tenants that if they are seeking to make a significant purchase like that, they are not drawn into the traps of loans sharks and otherwise to make the finances available. It’s something for which we think the 12-month period we believe will be adequate in that space.

Cabinet Secretary, we know that safe, secure and affordable homes are a crucial part of the fabric of fulfilling lives and strong, cohesive communities, and safeguarding and ensuring decent standards of Wales’s housing stock is a core component in achieving this. As you’re well aware, in February this year, my own council, Flintshire, was successful in its application to suspend right to buy in respect of all council dwellings, with, between 1996 and 2016, a total of 1,606 properties being sold against a backdrop of oversubscribed demand and ever-growing housing lists.

Cabinet Secretary, as you alluded to in a previous answer, the council has led the way in starting to build the first lot of new council homes in a generation through the strategic housing and regeneration programme, and I’m sure I don’t really have to ask whether you’ll join with me and welcome the precedent set by Flintshire County Council and its innovative and trailblazing approach. But I do have an additional question: in your statement, you say all affected tenants across Wales will be formally written to regarding changes under the legislation. Can I ask what guidance or resource will be provided to make sure that this happens? And also, can information be more widely publicised regarding the availability and eligibility for Welsh Government schemes such as Help to Buy and rent to own?

The Member raises some fair points in terms of the information for future tenants and future positioning of support from Welsh Government. We do have a website already with links to the suite of financial support or information available for new tenants. That is available from the Government. Of course, I’ll congratulate my local authority—our local authority—it would be unwise not to do so. Councillor Bernie Attridge, the lead member on housing, is a tremendous champion of social housing, and along with other authorities, I must say, they’re starting to turn the tide in terms of investing carefully in new housing stock for local people, which is very important.

I should just remind Members of a very stark fact that in England, there was a promise that for every one sold they would reinvest and build another home on the back of that. But, actually, the stats suggest that, for every seven that is lost to the market, only one is then rebuilt, which is unfortunate. Therefore, we’re never going to have enough social housing stock unless we make investments and protect them for the future, which is what we’re going to do here in Wales.

Thanks to the Minister for his statement today. In UKIP, we do broadly support the right to buy, but we also recognise the practical difficulties that this policy has led to. It’s interesting that the right to buy has become an ideological battleground between Labour and the Conservatives, because it was actually Labour that first proposed this kind of scheme in their 1959 general election manifesto under Hugh Gaitskell. However, Labour lost that election and it was the Conservatives who eventually, 20 years later, began to enact the sale of council houses, and it proved to be a popular policy, as David Melding has articulated earlier today.

However, sometimes it does take a distance of a few years before we can see if a policy has really worked or not. So, has right to buy helped to facilitate more home ownership in the UK? Well, up to a point, it certainly has. In 1980, when the Act came in, 55 per cent of British householders owned or mortgaged their own home. After the Act, this steadily rose, peaking at 71 per cent in 2003. Unfortunately, since then the figure has declined to its current level of less than 64 per cent, which means that, for the first time, we actually have lower home ownership rates than in France. So, it is a bit of a mixed message and I can see your concerns over right to buy.

The figures do become more concerning when they apply to the young. In 1990, 45 per cent of 25-year-olds were on the property ladder. In 2000, that figure had gone down to 34 per cent, and in 2010, it stood at 21 per cent. So, it certainly seems that today the young are being priced out of the property market. Indeed, the flip side of the 1980 Housing Act seems to have been that the severe restrictions on councils’ ability to build new council houses has ended up in a shortage of housing. Revenue from council house sales was directed by the central UK Government to go to reducing councils’ debt. So, we have had a period in which councils have been severely restricted in their ability to build council houses. We now enter a period in Wales when, as you, Minister, elucidated earlier, we are now seeing some council houses built again, which is a welcome development. But you are now addressing the problem of the depletion of stock, and that seems to be principally why you want to end the right to buy in Wales. We in UKIP think that there should be ring-fencing of revenue from the council house sales, with councils obligated to reinvest this into either new-build council houses or regeneration of existing stock.

We need to continue to push for job investment away from the major coastal towns and cities as far as we can, because this could then help to address the problem of the depopulation of the Valleys.

I haven’t heard a question yet. Are you coming to a question?

Well, I will start to introduce some questions. Thank you for reminding me, Deputy Presiding Officer. So I wondered, Minister, what you thought about this as part of your joined-up approach, presumably, to the housing issue. Because perhaps you can comment on this when I suggest that what we don’t really want are endless new private estates on the green belt, with only grudging and very minimal elements of social housing, whose residents clog up the road when they travel into their jobs in the city. Is this a good idea for the future? Perhaps you can elucidate your vision on this? Far better in my view—in our view—to try to keep jobs in the Valleys as far as possible, and to regenerate housing in the Valleys themselves, and also to develop brownfield and infill sites in the city. So, I wondered what your thoughts were on those ideas.

There are also other external factors—[Interruption.]—that you may be able to shed some light on—and I thank you for your interest, Members over there. For instance, we are leaving the EU—

Are you coming to a conclusion, please, with some questions?

I am indeed. I am indeed, Deputy Presiding Officer.

Thank you.

There are other issues, such as leaving the EU. I see that the EU forces member states to allow international investors to buy into their housing markets. This may now change. Is this a welcome development, therefore, noting that two Cardiff postcodes are in the top 10 for properties being owned by offshore companies? So, that could be addressed by us leaving the EU. So, a series of questions, we just took a while to get to them. But I’d be glad if you answer them. Thank you.

Before I call the Cabinet Secretary, could I just remind Members, all Members in the Chamber, this is a statement and it should be four spokespeople, a short preamble, and then a couple of questions per spokesperson? And for the rest of you, it is a straight question to the Minister, not a case of taking however much time you take to go around the houses, shall I say, to get to questions. They are questions, and I have a number of speakers. Cabinet Secretary.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, again. There were a lot of questions there—lots of those questions will be resolved through the scrutiny of the Bill as it take passage through the Assembly, which I’d be happy to debate with Members and the Member who asked those questions earlier on. Look, I’m not saying that the right to buy was a bad theory that was introduced, but it was fundamentally flawed. Mrs Thatcher had the opportunity to change many people’s lives and having the right to buy was one of their proposals too, but the problem was we weren’t reinvesting back into creating more housing stock. The public purse was shrinking and the issue of the housing revenue funding was going back disproportionately to Treasury. We’ve changed the rules now in terms of the HRA, and we’ve exited that programme where authorities are now able to keep 100 per cent of their capital receipts, but the stock level is so low. And that’s why we have to make sure, where we are making investments in these for the future, we protect them for the long term. Planning for the future is a piece legislation we introduced here in Wales, and this Act—hopefully, if passed by this Assembly—will help us complete that programme. But the Member did raise many issues, indeed, including the issues around Brexit, which I’m sure will come up during the discussions through the scrutiny of the Bill.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your statement here today. This is an important announcement and, moreover, one that was endorsed by voters in Wales during last year’s Assembly election. As you’ve pointed out, for every 20 social housing properties in existence in 1981, nine have since been sold off, and whilst the right to buy did help many families onto the housing ladder, the policy was not introduced in a sustainable way. We are facing the social consequences of this today, so I welcome your action.

My questions: I note from your statement will still give social landlords the option to sell homes to their tenants. If this does happen, what safeguards will be in place to make sure that any such sales will not impact on the provision of housing stock? How will the Welsh Government encourage social landlords to invest any money made in this way back into providing more housing to make up the shortfall? And finally, it’s important that Welsh citizens know about these changes, and I note the duty on social landlords to inform their tenants, but how will you monitor this to make sure that it has actually taken place, and what consequences will there be if social landlords do not convey this information accurately?

I thank the Member for her questions. She’s right to raise the issue: for every 20, nine have been sold off since 1981. Even more stats to add to that: we’ve sampled around eight authorities in Wales where we already know the ones that have been sold, so, of that 48 per cent of the ones that have been sold, 12 per cent of them have got into the private sector rental market, as well, so they’re not even being used as right to buy; they’re being used as profit-making programmes for investors—again, something that is not helpful for the provision of affordable homes for individuals.

In terms of the last point about information sharing, we will give that some further thought, whether that be information that is sent out by Welsh Government or whether it’s by social housing. But it is something that I’d be very keen to ensure, that where a voluntary sale takes place by an RSL or a council, that that money is back, reinvested into housing policy again, and that would be an important principle that I will be hoping to follow through in terms of the committee.

Cabinet Secretary, I just wonder, before you launched this Bill or indeed popped it into your manifesto before the Assembly elections, whether you considered reviewing the qualifying criteria. Did you look at all as to how many people who have bought their homes then stayed in them for successive years and, indeed, decades, or passed them down to their families? Because, of course, when people talk about this, there’s an assumption that, suddenly, these 140,000 homes would be available for people now, today, to inhabit. Of course, they’re not, because where are those people going to go? The same could be said of the 250 people who are trying to buy their homes now. They’re not going to suddenly disappear; they’re still going to remain in those homes. It will not increase the housing stock.

My second question to you is about the grace period. You said earlier, and I just want a clarification on this, that the grace period would not apply to those people who wanted to buy, but who haven’t because the council has suspended the right to buy. Therefore, can you explain why you are not going to give them that grace period as well? Because I have a number of constituents who wanted to buy, haven’t been able to and were told, ‘Don’t worry, this is just a temporary measure.’ Now, that opportunity to own the home of their dreams is going to be taken away from them for ever.

I think, finally, I wanted to know if—sorry, I think it’s just completely gone out of my head. Oh, sorry. Finally, I just wanted to know, in your qualifying criteria, whether you would have considered actually, with the sale of any home, that money now being earmarked for the rebuilding of social housing. I totally accept that, over the last 35 years, people didn’t build the homes they had the opportunities to, but that doesn’t mean to say that you couldn’t have made a change to this. One last quick question: does this mean that you do not trust your county councils to suspend where they need it, because you’re taking this power away from them permanently? I would have said that was against the localism agenda. Thank you.

I’m grateful for the Member’s balanced comments, again. This was a manifesto commitment that we took through all the channels of the manifesto programme. We took it to the people and the people voted for it. We were privileged to be voted in as Government, and now we’re completing that manifesto promise as indicated.

I’ll take the last point first, if I may, in terms of the ability to make sure that funding is reinvested back in housing. We have changed the rules now, but the problem is we’ve had a loss of housing stock. Authorities are able to now maintain 100 per cent of the sale and put it back into the housing provision. So, we have made amendments to the financial process that was started 35 years—it’s very different today. But we have lost an awful lot of stock, and that’s why—. I also recognise the point the Member makes, saying that this won’t increase the numbers of stock, but what it does is it preserves them as entities. When these are sold, as I said earlier, in eight authorities that we’ve sampled, over 12 per cent of those have gone into the private rented sector, so they’re not in the social sector that they were created for.

The Member is correct in her assumption about the temporary grace period and the ability of the ones that are already in suspension; they will not get the premise to apply for the 12-month grace period. It does not apply to them. The reason for that and the reason this was introduced in the first place is because there is a housing pressure in that particular area and, therefore, we wouldn’t want to see increased sales in those areas now or within the five-year period. Lots of analysis goes into the testing of local authorities when they apply for the suspension. So, in 12 months’ time, that position wouldn’t have changed. We wouldn’t have suddenly increased the housing supply by 250 or whatever that number may be. Therefore, it will not apply to those who are already currently within the temporary abatement in terms of right to buy.

I think I’ve covered the Member’s three questions.

I was pleased to hear the Cabinet Secretary put this measure in the context of a suite of policies designed to preserve social housing stock, and increase the supply of affordable housing. Does he share my worry about what the effect would be on the supply of affordable housing in Wales if Plaid Cymru, the Tories and UKIP had succeeded last week in their attempt to block the Welsh Labour-led Government from investing a further £30 million in affordable housing?

I think the Member is right to raise that issue of making sure that we are able to take this Bill forward and protecting the housing stock for the future. I’m really grateful to the finance Minister who recognises the very big challenge of providing 20,000 more new units in Wales. It’s not an easy challenge, and it can’t be on a light-switch moment; it has to be delivered early on, and we’ve started that process. So, that’s why, despite challenging financial times, the finance Secretary has allowed the Cabinet and us to make significant investments with local authorities, with RSLs, now, to make sure that we can deliver for people over the next five years.

I’m sure that you will recall coming to Kidwelly and visiting the new houses being built at Morfa Maen in 2013 under the then Labour leadership of Carmarthenshire County Council—the first council to build council houses in Wales since the 1980s. We now have 11 home-owning Welsh authorities that have exited the housing revenue account subsidy, and that does mean that they now retain their rent revenues locally rather than sending them back to the Treasury, and can invest that money in local stock. So, my question to you, Cabinet Secretary, is whether you feel, as part of this Bill, that by ending the right to buy, it will add to the protection that councils will have, and actually embolden local authorities to resume their historic role as major house builders?

Thank you for your question. I do remember vividly the visit to Kidwelly, back in 2013. From then I moved onto the environment division, and now I’m back, as they say in California. The issue in terms of the great scheme I saw in Kidwelly was something about local people investing in their communities and having the vision to do that. I congratulated the authority at that point in time.

Exiting the HRA: I claimed all credit for that, but actually, it was partly to do with Jocelyn Davies, who was the housing Minister previously, who instigated that programme. I just picked it up at the end, and I was fortunate enough to be the one who delivered it. But there was a lot of work that went into the background of that, making sure again that we were able to deliver longer term with an investment there.

I did miss one question that Angela Burns raised about whether I trust local authorities. I absolutely do trust local authorities to build more homes, but the problem is that the legislation doesn’t protect them in the long term. That’s why we are seeing progressive authorities, like Flintshire, like many others across—. Rhondda Cynon Taf is another local authority that’s doing some great investments. We have to give them the tools to be able to deliver as well, and that’s why this Bill will be not just a Bill to end the right to buy, but to make sure that our clever investment in building new homes and social housing stock is protected for our young people for the future.

Thank you. Dawn Bowden.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. After you chastising other Members, I’ve cut this down quite considerably from what I was originally going to say. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his very welcome statement, setting out another example of the Labour Welsh Government delivering on one of its manifesto pledges in its first year in office? I would have to say that this is absolutely in stark contrast to the recent broken promises that we’ve seen from the Tories on their manifesto pledges on national insurance, and actually, on building affordable homes, which they’ve backtracked on this week as well.

So, Cabinet Secretary, the legacy of the right to buy in the 1980s, as you’ve already touched on, left us woefully short of housing stock and, as we’ve already heard, local authorities were prevented from reinvesting moneys from the sale of those houses. When I hear the Conservatives and UKIP talking about reinvesting that, it’s all—I’m afraid—too little too late. We needed that in the 1980s, and we didn’t have it, and that, both directly and indirectly, led to the housing crisis that we’re still trying to deal with. So, while I understand the issue of home ownership aspiration, I do think that needs to be addressed in different ways, as you’ve already also highlighted in your statement.

I’ve had some recent discussions, Cabinet Secretary, with Merthyr Valleys Homes on the right to buy. Bearing in mind this is the smallest local authority in Wales, they’ve still sold 93 of their homes at a cost of £5.5 million—[Interruption.]

Am I hearing a question, please?

They have had to discount that by £1.5 million. So, what I want to know, Cabinet Secretary is: given all the points that you’ve made in your statement today, have you made an assessment of how many homes you expect this policy to safeguard, now and into the future in the social housing sector, and more importantly, have you made an assessment of how this might relieve the pressures on council housing waiting lists?

I thank the Member for her question. The policy that’s happened in England is a matter for the UK Government. I also agree with the Member that the housing White Paper and the issues around their promise on developing new homes is collapsing, but we’re not in England—yet. The fact is, we’ve got to concentrate on what we can do here. That’s why we’re making a very positive statement in ending the right to buy, but also all of those other actions that the Member raises, about help to buy, rent to own, and working with a very nimble set of organisations. The RSLs in Wales are very organised and deliver lots, in many cases—more so the housing plus agenda. So, they don’t just build homes; they build communities, and I’m really interested in how we make sure our money goes further in terms of ensuring, when we create communities, we can create sustainable ones. So, this housing division is just part of the suite of tools you’ll have heard me talking about, about how we create a resilient community, a stronger, empowered community, and this is just part of that jigsaw. Working with my colleagues, right across Cabinet, we can deliver a different Wales, which will present an opportunity for people who want to buy homes in the future—we’ve got products to do that—but our social housing stock, which is under extreme pressure, is protected for our generations to come.

I think very few people believe in selling stock off and not replacing it. My question really is: what is wrong with selling off social housing responsibly, and reinvesting to build more social housing to create a virtuous circle and enable people to become more independent? And I suppose, really, this may be addressed to everybody, because everybody here owns their own home. Now, I won’t embarrass people; some people own more than one home. And yet, do you find it ironic that people here, everybody owning their own home—don’t you find it ironic that you’re telling working-class people that they’re not able to own their homes?

That’s a really interesting point that the Member raises, and what we’re saying here is that we’re not stopping people owning their own home. We are making sure that there are products available that will allow people to get into the housing market, and those are the schemes that I’ve talked about: the help to buy and the rent to own programmes that always are supporting the ability of people to do that. I don’t disagree with the Member in terms of the circular economy and making sure that if we were to sell one, we build one. That hasn’t happened in the past, and that’s why we’re trying to protect the stock that we do have now, whereas in the past—and the Member will be aware of this—the homes have been sold and the HRA only allowed the capital spend of 75 per cent to be kept back in, so you were always at a deficit and you couldn’t build new properties for that. And that’s why it’s important for us to stop that proposal happening. We are going to be building more social housing for people who want that, but we’re also providing products for people to get onto the housing market ladder, if that’s what they want to do, as well.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary.