Questions now from the party spokespeople. Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Bethan Jenkins.

I recently met with ‘The Big Issue’ and street vendors in Cardiff, and, as politicians and citizens alike, we can do more to help those who are sleeping rough, such as promoting the StreetLink scheme, which allows anyone to call or send an online alert about the location of someone they see sleeping rough, so authorities will then locate them and offer them that support. The expansion of schemes like this, however, illustrates that the number of people sleeping rough in Wales has jumped significantly, and Shelter Cymru has recorded a 63 per cent rise in people needing their service, and this is something that I think we need to tackle and to understand. I want to try and learn about those experiences myself, so I agreed, when I was there—. I don’t know how they managed to influence me, but I said that I would go out and become a ‘The Big Issue’ street vendor so that I could see how many I could sell, in competition with some of the ‘The Big Issue’ sellers. And I wondered, Cabinet Secretary, if you would like to join me one day—anywhere in Wales; it doesn’t have to be Cardiff, in the spirit of the all-Wales approach that we have—to come and sell ‘The Big Issue’ with me, to see how they operate and to see how they are making a living on the streets.

Well, the Member may be very surprised, but I would be delighted to join the Member in Cardiff or wherever, to come along with you. I think it’s really important that we experience the real living experience of people who are working or have found themselves on the streets. The other evening, the Member might be pleased to know that I spent 10 minutes sitting in ‘Chippy Alley’ in Cardiff, talking to a young person who was homeless. They were stark conversations we had, about the influence of what is happening to her life, and the vulnerability of her. I think I would be more than happy to come out with you and talk to people in the communities in the area you represent, too.

Thank you very much, and I look forward to going undercover and seeing how many we sell and how many we can—. Well, we’ll have a competition, shall we? Let’s see. But to go back to the serious issue, there are of course other ways in which you and your Government can help solve this particular problem, as opposed to just selling ‘The Big Issue’. Placing duties on local authorities to prevent homelessness has improved matters, but has not stemmed the growth in rough sleepers. Is it now time, do you think, to update your homelessness strategy to include a national approach to tackling rough sleeping, getting people off the street and into accommodation, so if there are other issues—such as mental health problems—that can be addressed, we can make sure that they are, and that we don’t have a propensity of people rough sleeping in Wales?

I think when we introduced the legislation around homelessness, we had a fantastic response in terms of a reduction in the numbers, and I pay tribute to local authorities who have been dealing with that. I spoke to Shelter Cymru this morning, and they are very impressed at the pace of the success we’ve had, but I also acknowledge the fact that there have been some other interventions that have happened here that have caused a different dynamic of street homelessness and rough sleepers out there. If you walk through the cities now, you’ll see a younger cohort of individuals being there. The implementation of the 18 to 21-year-old housing benefit cuts this week will increase that. So, there is some work, and I met with the First Minister, also, yesterday, to talk about youth homelessness and the fact that we have to have some urgent pieces of work looking at how we get direct intervention, and it might be by working from the non-traditional way that we provide support. But I’ve already visited some areas where there are some clever interventions about supporting people and housing solutions as well, which I’m really interested in.

I certainly concur with the questions earlier about the housing cap. I think that’s a ticking time bomb and something that we have to be campaigning against. But one of the many problems people face when forced into rough sleeping is that, currently, they’re not considered to be in priority need. In the past you’ve rejected phasing out priority need, and defended that decision. And I quote, you’ve stated:

The right balance must be struck between the rights of the applicant and the duties and the burdens that we place on local authorities.’

But as you will know, all the research shows that homelessness itself imposes a bigger cost to public services than preventing homelessness in the first place. Even conservative states in the US have grasped this, and here in the UK, Crisis have modelled the financial impact of homelessness and found that in every scenario, the savings for public services outweighed the cost of preventing homelessness by a magnitude of 3:1 over just one year. And for some scenarios where you assume additional costs, such as frequent arrests and use of mental health services and their facilities, the savings could be as high as 20:1. So, would you, therefore, accept that ending priority need and adopting a housing first policy would save public funding in the long term, and agree to look at this matter again as a matter of urgency?

As I said earlier on, I think when we introduced the legislation, we were at a point in time where we believed it was the right thing to do. We’ve seen those interventions being very positive. I think now is the time to refresh policy and have a review about what we’re doing in terms of intervention. The evidence is on our streets. We can see people that are homeless and rough sleeping, and, therefore, there must be something out of kilter between the legislation and the implementation. I’m very happy to look at that, and, in addition to Shelter, I met with Crisis as well yesterday. So, I’ve met with a host of organisations that deal with homelessness, because I think this should be a priority for the Government.

Welsh Conservative spokesperson, Mark Isherwood.

Diolch, Llywydd. I previously highlighted to you the Young Foundation’s ‘Valuing Places’ report, funded by Welsh Government, and based on research in three areas, including your own home town, and they said that establishing local networks should be a priority. In your foreword to the Welsh Government’s information advice action plan, you say that strong and well-integrated advice services have an important role to play in promoting the well-being and prosperity essential to building resilient communities, and, of course, that’s absolutely correct. Based on the recommendations received from the National Advice Network, your plan states that local and regional networks will be key contributors to both the Welsh Government publication of its independent advice needs analysis and the national advice network, although the first was published in March 2017, and the second working group established in 2017-18. How, therefore, will you accommodate this when your plan also says that working with and encouraging the development of local regional networks won’t happen until 2018 onwards?

Well, we’ve already started engaging with communities with regard to our longer term vision on the way to have resilient communities. My team have been talking to all the Communities First clusters and their team managers, and with local authorities. We’ve already started work with some organisations around Children First zones, and looking at what that looks like for making sure we get feedback from the communities, as opposed to directly down from organisations like ourselves. So, while the proposals may suggest 2018 in terms of timeline, actually, we’ve started that process already.

Okay. Well, one of the local organisations I’ve referred to you, which is delivering an internationally developed, world-class service, is the Eagle House Youth Development Community Interest Company, working in Snowdonia, based on Anglesey, and their young achievers programme, helping to tackle offending by supporting young people upfront. They’ve run two successful contracts with job centres, and continue to deliver across north Wales for them. They’ve also been contacted by local education authorities across north Wales to provide residential behavioural development courses for schools, but they’re still fighting to get their work with prolific offenders, and reducing the offending, off the ground, even with the support of the police offender management unit and probation, and they ask for a meeting with you. Now, I fully appreciate your response, when you said that you provide funding directly to the youth offending teams via local authorities, and it’s for them to commission that service directly from Eagle House. But I ask you again: will you engage directly with them to see for yourself how effective this sort of local network intervention is? And I know you can’t force local authorities, but you can certainly highlight good practice that they may wish to consider. Will you do so?

Well, I would hope that local authorities were able to get into that space of intervention and support for businesses that can demonstrate they’re having a positive impact. I actually visited Flintshire, who are working with the Youth Justice Board on an enhanced case management programme, which has a massive impact on the reduction of reoffending in a very prolific area of reoffenders. We’ve had some great success there. I’m sure that my team will have heard your question and will talk to the Youth Justice Board accordingly to see if they are able to meet with, I think you say, the Eagle House organisation.

Eagle House, yes. Thank you. I would emphasise that they’re a company, but they’re non-profit and are a community interest organisation.

My final question relates to the National Citizen Service operating in England and Northern Ireland, benefiting the personal development of young people, their life experiences and the strengths that employers look for in young people. Three hundred thousand young people have taken part in this programme across England and Northern Ireland, with excellent outcomes. You wrote to the MP for the Vale of Clwyd, Dr James Davies, highlighting the fact that the Welsh Government was receiving £60 million of consequential moneys to include running a National Citizen Service, that a previous pilot project was positive in some respects, and that you promised to work with the UK Government Minister to see what might be developed, based on the National Citizen Service and existing Welsh schemes. Could you provide us with an update on where the Welsh Government are up to with that?

We’re still in discussions with the UK Government. I’ve had several conversations, and many exchanges, with the UK Government Ministers on this very issue, about the principles of a scheme here in Wales. Now, we already run a volunteering scheme, and much other support, for young people in Wales. And my question to the Minister in the UK was how this would add value to our contribution already. What will that additionality bring to it? The Minister was positive. He said that he would seek to address some of the issues financially. To date, he hasn’t been able to secure any additional funding for us. But my team are in correspondence; I saw a note this week from interventions between the two departments.

UKIP spokesperson, Gareth Bennett.

Diolch, Llywydd. I was going to ask you today, Minister, some questions relating to housing and, in particular, the Welsh Government’s involvement in stimulating housing supply. I know that there have been efforts to increase the use of publicly owned land for housing supply. Could you update us on these efforts, also on the operation of the housing supply taskforce, which was set up in 2013?

I think we’ve had great success in delivering more homes for communities across Wales. We exceeded our target in the last term of Government, with over 11,000, working in partnership with the housing sector. This year, we’ve just signed a compact between the housing sector and local authorities. Our proposals to introduce the end of the right to buy will help ensure that investment made by these organisations will be planning for the long term, with more delivery—20,000 more units over this term of Government, supported, very kindly, by the finance Minister.

Yes, thanks for your answer, Minister. I know that you have the Bill going through to safeguard the social housing stock, as you see it, which is your approach. But I’m looking at the other end of it today—increasing the actual supply, which you are enlightening me as to the efforts that you’re making. Now, another possible area where this could be improved is by the release of brownfield sites. Is your department involved in this area, and are there any initiatives to help release brownfield sites, such as the compilation of toxicology reports?

Well, there are two areas. My team are already in discussion with Ken Skates, and his department, looking at what land we own as Government. We are also having discussions with the health portfolio, to see, again, whether there is any potential for land usage and stock to be installed there. We’ve just launched a £20 million innovation programme for housing schemes. We’re not short of innovation in Wales, and there are many schemes going through that look at land use, and not just ours, but registered social landlords and others, to use as a catalyst for growth.

So, I think, over the next 12 months, Wales is an exciting place to do business in the housing field. And what we’re seeking to do is something new. If you do the same, you get the same. We’re looking at innovation and doing something different. And things like the universal credit, tackling issues for 18 to 21-year-olds, which we talked about earlier on, are things we’re going to have to address and mitigate with our housing solutions here in Wales.

Yes, I appreciate there are problems in that area. If we keep to the housing supply angle, which you’ve been articulating, another area is bringing into the housing supply empty homes. I know you’ve had some success with the Houses into Homes scheme. The latest figures I’ve seen indicate that there are around 23,000 empty houses currently in Wales. That’s your figure, by the way. So, is the Government’s Houses into Homes scheme likely to release many more of these empty properties and assist in converting them into residences?

There are two parts, again, where they will continue with that programme—very successful—but there’s still more to do. I think, again, rather than always building new properties, what we could do is make some interventions of using older properties, if we’re able to make sure that they’re energy efficient and they’re suitable for accommodation. It’s something I’ve asked my team to look at in terms of direct intervention around homes that are empty in our communities that we see.