9. Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on the building of new homes in Mid and West Wales? OAQ(5)0152(CC)

I thank the Member for her question. House building is a priority for this Government, and latest quarterly statistics suggest an increase in new homes built in Mid and West Wales compared with the previous year. This progress has been supported by Help to Buy—Wales, rural housing enablers and our 20,000 affordable homes target.

The Cabinet Secretary has committed to building 20,000 new homes in Wales by 2021 and, of course, the Cabinet Secretary is aware that the affordability of homes in parts of rural Wales is a real issue. I just wondered if the Cabinet Secretary could give an assurance that mid and west Wales, which has approximately one fifth of the population of Wales, will get their share of those 20,000 new homes in Wales. What assurances can we give to our own constituents?

Of course, the Member’s right and is always an advocate for the mid and west region that she represents. I can’t say to the Member categorically that you will receive a fifth of the 20,000, but I can assure you that the products that we have in place, such as Help to Buy—Wales and the other projects that we are delivering across Wales, will be available to your constituents too, and it’s an important process where we do realise that there are homes needed for people right across the length and breadth of Wales.

Cabinet Secretary, will you outline what considerations the Welsh Government has made to ensuring that planning conditions for new homes include a requirement that fibre broadband should be installed?

I’ve actually had some discussions with the planning Minister, and also with some public companies to make sure we can consider this as we move forward. It is an important part of moving technology forward, and I often hear the Member relate to the adequacy of broadband in his constituency also. But, it is something that we are taking up with developers and registered social landlords.

Affordability, of course, isn’t just about buying a home or renting a home. It’s also about affordability of maintaining and being in a warm and safe home. That’s particularly true of Mid and West Wales, where a lot of homes are off-grid and don’t have access to the gas grid in particular and are reliant on solid fuel or oil or imported gas. What are you doing therefore to ensure that the homes that you are building or encouraging to be refurbished are of the highest environmental standards that both provide good environmental benefits but also, very importantly, benefits for the tenants or owners of those homes in terms of ongoing maintenance and costs of living there?

I think that there are two parts to this. I think the investment that the Government’s made with its programmes for refurbishment around gas boilers and insulation et cetera is an important part of that. But, I’m really encouraged about the innovation, and I talk this through often with one of my Members from the back benches, Jenny, regarding the energy efficiency of new homes and why we should be building new types of homes here in Wales rather than the traditional brick build. We should be looking at the long term, thinking about the energy conservation and the affordability of properties. We are trying to look at that, about leverage, with RSLs and our big investment of £1.2 billion, and what more we can get for our money.