Thank you very much for those questions. I'll begin where you left off, in terms of the support for house building and support for people aspiring to own a home, particularly in rural communities. Because we know that, in rural communities, there is a particularly acute challenge in terms of affordability, particularly, I think, for some of our key workers—nurses, teachers and so on—who find it really difficult to be able to afford a home within their own community.

The role of our rural housing enablers is particularly important in terms of working alongside local authorities, and with our housing associations, in those rural communities, in order to pinpoint the areas where we do need to be putting in further investment and creating further opportunities for home building. I'm particularly keen to see what we can do about encouraging self-builds, and I've asked officials to provide me with some advice on this. It's something, actually, that could be beneficial for all kinds of communities, but I think in rural communities particularly it might be something that provides opportunities for people.

We've also established a rural strategic group, and that includes those rural housing enablers, housing associations, local authorities, Community Housing Cymru and the WLGA. They are a group that now meets quarterly in order to advise Welsh Government, but also to test ideas and share good practice as well. I agree that our housing proposals, but also working in partnership with planning, do offer the opportunity to support and promote the Welsh language, particularly often again in rural communities. I think that housing does have an important role to play in supporting the Welsh language.

You also referred to empty homes, and I share your concern about the number of empty homes that there are across Wales. Some of those properties could quite easily provide people with a much needed home. So, we are committed again to working with local authorities in Wales to bring back houses into use and to provide ongoing support to those authorities, to our Houses into Homes and town centre loan schemes. These initiatives, which are operated by local authorities together, have amounted to over £50 million, providing home owners with the finance that they require in order to renovate those properties and bring them up to a standard that is suitable for rent or for sale.

The terms and conditions of the Houses into Homes scheme have recently been amended to enable local authorities to have greater flexibility so they can offer a more customer-focused solution to the problem of empty houses, and loans are now available to bring empty houses back and commercial buildings back into use, but actually splitting them into flats as well in order to try and create a greater number of homes as well. So, there is work going on on empty homes, but I agree that we need to be considering what further we can do. Locally, I know of good examples in Swansea where the council is providing funding to empty home owners who are then encouraged to bring their homes up to a standard on the understanding that they will have a guaranteed tenant. So, that meets both of our agendas in terms of creating greater amounts of social housing, but also bringing empty homes back into use as well. 

The rising cost of living and the difficulty in securing enough funding for a deposit is one of the real drivers behind the rent to own Wales scheme and the shared ownership Wales scheme, and it was remiss of me not to point out earlier that the rent to own scheme particularly was one of the agreements that we came to with Kirsty Williams, who's been particularly passionate about this and the opportunity that it provides for quite some time. 

The rent to own scheme provides people with the opportunity to move into the house that they want at an early stage, but then they will be able to pay rent on that property and, between two and five years later, will be able to claim back 25 per cent of the money that they paid as rent and use that as a deposit, alongside some of the value of any increase in the value of that property as well. So, it's an opportunity for people, often young people, but as you say not always young people, to move into the house that they would like to live in and like to settle down in at an early stage. 

Six housing associations are working with us at the moment but we are having discussions to increase that and I would like to see these houses being made available across Wales. Whether people choose to go for rent to own or the shared ownership scheme will be a matter of judgment for that individual, but those particular houses are available for either scheme as well. 

I'll certainly be having some discussions with officials in terms of conversations they've had with the local authorities about the stories that you referred to over the weekend. But I will say that cross-border movement of people is very much something that's on my radar, particularly in the Newport area following the announcement of the removal of the tolls on the Severn bridge. I've had discussions with house builders and they're telling me that it is genuinely having an impact on the pressure on the housing market in that area. They're seeing increased desire for house building in the area, so there'll be some discussions that we need to be continuing to have with the local authority there to ensure that we're able to meet the needs of people within the area who want to stay within their area as well.