6. What is the Welsh Government doing to increase the availability of housing in Wales? (OAQ51172)

We are making a significant investment in all housing tenures, which is reflected in our 20,000 affordable homes target. We’re providing additional support for social housing and financing to get small companies building again, as well as new schemes to make home ownership more accessible and support for innovation.

I thank him for that answer. Yesterday, I joined the Minister for skills at Hale Construction in Neath in my constituency to discuss modular housing. There’s a growing interest in off-site construction in meeting housing need in Wales. It brings sustainability benefits, with energy efficiency, and speed of construction. There’s also interest from overseas companies in particular in importing components for construction in the UK. If the sector were to be dominated by that, that would cover the cost of sustainability and, indeed, the cost of the opportunity to create jobs in Wales for this emerging sector. There are policy challenges for the growth of the sector, including planning, the supply chain, finance and support for SMEs, which make up the current majority of the sector in terms of manufacturing. Will the First Minister commit to reviewing and addressing the policy obstacles to the growth of the sector, which if we don’t build in Wales, others will?

Well, I’m delighted that 35 schemes have applied for support from the first round of the innovative housing programme. They have been assessed by an independent panel, and we will be announcing the ones that we will be supporting before the end of this month.

First Minister, earlier this year I raised the work of Hafan Las, a local group in Pembrokeshire that promotes cohousing, in a question session. Proposals such as this will provide efficient and affordable housing for local people, with a third of the residents over 50 in order to bridge the gap between generations. In your response in May, you said that this was something that you and your officials would be interested in. Given your previous comments, could you give us an update on how the Welsh Government is supporting projects such as this in west Wales?

Wel, rydym ni yn rhoi cyllid refeniw i Ganolfan Cydweithredol Cymru er mwyn rhoi cefnogaeth i grwpiau cydweithredol tai. Mae hwn yn rhywbeth sydd yn cael ei wneud ar draws Cymru. Rydym ni’n moyn hybu ffyrdd gwahanol o adeiladau tai, gan gynnwys, wrth gwrs, ffyrdd gwahanol o adeiladu tai gan grwpiau cydweithredol.

First Minister, yesterday, I was pleased to be able to go out and be a ‘The Big Issue’ vendor, alongside Cabinet Secretary Carl Sargeant, taking part in that process as a way of seeing how people who are, potentially, in between housing, who are struggling with many things in their lives, are using ‘The Big Issue’ to sell and not to beg. What I found was it was quite revealing as to how invisible I felt, quite frankly, to many people who were just going about their daily lives and didn’t really realise that selling ‘The Big Issue’ was part of a social enterprise and it was going to aid and help them to get out of the situation that they were in. So, I’m wondering if we could encourage, and you could encourage, people to actually buy ‘The Big Issue’ and if you could tell us how you are helping people in those situations into jobs, so that they feel empowered to live their everyday lives in a successful way.

I’d be more than happy to work with ‘The Big Issue’ in order to promote it. I know, as a group, we do advertise and pay for that in ‘The Big Issue’, as I’m sure other groups do as well. I’d certainly be interested in helping a campaign to encourage people to buy ‘The Big Issue’. When it comes to the actual vendors, their circumstances tend to be very, very different, so, for them, what’s needed is a tailored package to help them. But the very fact, of course, that they are selling ‘The Big Issue’ rather than begging is a sign that they want to get onto the ladder of improving their lives and putting more money in their pockets so they can live more comfortably. It would be useful to work with ‘The Big Issue’ in order to understand what more could be done to help those people.

Could I invite the First Minister to perhaps expand a little bit on the answer he just gave to Paul there on the Pembrokeshire example? Because there has been support over a number of years now for the community land trust model within Wales, and there have been many very good, but relatively small-scale, examples, particularly in rural communities, but now within towns as well. But if you look at, for example, the Burlington community land trust model in Vermont—I believe a certain gentleman called Bernie Sanders had something to do with the establishment of it in 1983—it now has within that community land trust over 2,000 properties and protection of open spaces, as well, that go with it. It’s a not-for-profit model, it has ownership by local people and it’s providing affordable purchase homes, not just to rent, and they share the assets when they are released, but it dampens down the rise. Now, I just wonder whether, with local authorities, with the regional consortiums we have, with the city deals and so on, does he—? Would he venture to think that there is scope here for some creative thinking, in the large affordable housing plans that we have, on how community land trusts can actually fill some of that gap?

Yes, I do, and the advantage of a community land trust, of course, is that the land is owned communally or by a trust. The houses are leased from that trust, and so there is a limit as to how much those houses can be sold for. People can make a little money from houses that they sell, but the prices are kept low enough to be affordable—so, a hugely important model that we want to promote. How are we doing this? Well, for example, in the last Government we provided nearly £2 million of capital funding to support the development of three co-operative housing pilot projects in Cardiff, in Newport and in Carmarthen—87 new homes. We want to see more co-operative housing, including the CLT model, and we would very much welcome more proposals from local authorities and housing associations as to how they can be delivered.