Thank you, Presiding Officer. No-one wanted a minute in this debate which is hardly surprising, because I think most people have got other things on their minds. It’s probably a bad day to have this debate: it’s not only the eve of a general election, but we’ve already had one housing debate today.

But I think housing is one of the great challenges facing all of Britain, including Wales. The post-war period in terms of housing can be broken into two periods: first, the period from 1945 to 1980. During that period, we saw a huge growth in council housing and the building of a large number of new estates, especially in the larger urban areas. We also saw the growth of owner occupation and the start of the building of large private estates, again predominantly in urban areas.

Housing has changed a lot in the last 50 years and I would say not all for the best. There has been a large increase in empty properties; there has been a change in housing tenure; an increase in the number of single-person households; an increase in pensioner households; and an increase in young people in houses in multiple occupation, especially but not only students, as student numbers have increased considerably. Council housing has declined through sales and the failure to build. There has been a substantial growth in housing associations. There was a decline in the private rented sector in the 1960s and 1970s, where, by the end of the 1970s, privately rented really often meant only student accommodation. That’s been reversed. Both the large-scale owners and those using an additional house as an alternative to a private pension, there has been a huge increase in it, especially in areas that historically have not been associated with having privately rented accommodation. As a consequence of benefit changes, demand has increased for smaller sized accommodation.