Thank you for an advance copy of the statement, and before I go into some questions about this particular statement, I'd just like to ask your views on some of the news reports, over the weekend, about the fact that there are councils in England that are minded to buy some housing stock here in Wales—I think Merthyr council was quoted. This isn't a new phenomenon, actually. When I was a student at Aberystwyth university, I saw a DVD from a borough in London, wanting to promote Ceredigion as a place to live for tenants in London, which, obviously, I don't think is a bad thing—we should encourage people to come to Wales if they choose to come and live in Wales—but what does that mean for you, as the Government, if there are councils in the city of London that are buying up stock that potentially you want to develop here in Wales, with Welsh councils? How can we understand what your engagement is with those particular local authorities, to know what that will mean then for our targets here in Wales?

We do welcome the review being set up. I also welcome the terms of reference, and particularly the focus on funding options to secure the long-term affordable housing choices that we have. I understand—as we all do—that financial considerations are important in the current environment, but of course, we need to be ambitious, not just in the social rented sector but in terms of homes to buy. It's estimated that if the UK had built 300,000 homes in the UK per year since 1996, then the average UK house price today would be only 7 per cent lower than it currently is. The current housing crisis is not only the product of a lack of homes. It's the product of a lack of accommodation amongst lenders and Government to recognise the role that unstable jobs, stagnant pay and the rising cost of living are having across the whole sector. So, where Government can step in to help, then we certainly would welcome that.

It's crucial, given the cost of housing and the rising cost of living, combined with stagnant wages, that there is real support for people trying to obtain an affordable home. So, I do welcome this website launch. It's important to have all of the help and information available in one place. We have been critical in the past of perhaps some piecemeal announcements and lots of information in lots of different places, so we are hopeful that this website will serve to alleviate that, to a large extent.

In terms of the two new schemes launched and other aspects of the review, I'd like to ask some specific questions. How much of the £70 million does the Welsh Government estimate it will recoup from the funding, particularly in relation to rent to own? Are you confident that the amount is enough? In terms of the other existing schemes, I feel it should be pointed out that Help to Buy isn't only a scheme for first-time buyers. The average price of a home under the scheme was £180,000, and a quarter of buyers were not first-time buyers. So, perhaps there could be a way to be more focused on the actual target audience. This scheme was initially launched as something to help the construction industry too, I believe, so I would like to ask whether the review could look at whether there are more effective ways to assist first-time buyers.

An FOI by ITV recently showed that there are now 43,000 empty homes in Wales—almost double the number from just a few years ago. This is despite the Welsh Government scheme to attempt to put empty homes back into use. So, could your review look into how effective current policies are in this regard? I understand that councils have powers to put homes back into use, but clearly they're not using those powers, otherwise the numbers would not be as low as what I have just quoted.

I'd also like the review to investigate what could be done about high rents and increases. At the moment, average private sector rent increases are lower than the amount allowed for rent increases in the social rented sector. So, this is something that needs to be looked at, along with other options.

Finally, you mentioned rural communities and how you want to look at other innovative ways of encouraging rural communities to look at housing options. I would also like to say that we need to have more community involvement in communities, so that if they can identify potentially what is needed, be it language, be it specific characteristics that need to be potentially retained in those areas—quite often a controversial topic, but a topic that we need to address—then what will your department be considering as viable options in that regard?