9. Statement by the Minister for Housing and Regeneration: Integrating Housing, Health and Social Care

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 7:11 pm on 26 June 2018.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 7:11, 26 June 2018

Thank you very much for those questions. I'll begin at the end of your contribution when you were talking about innovative housing. I think that we are really on the cusp of a revolution in terms of the way that we build housing. There are so many exciting new ways of building homes. Some of those are being supported through our £90 million innovative housing programme. The current window is open for another week or so—another couple of weeks—so I'll certainly be encouraging businesses of all sizes to consider making applications to that. I think it's particularly well suited to SMEs because SMEs have a long history of embracing risk long before the volume house builders have done. I met with the Federation of Small Businesses earlier today and I was impressing upon them the need to be promoting amongst their members the opportunities under the innovative housing programme for SMEs, because they are real opportunities, I think. 

They also have access to our property development fund, which is a £30 million fund, and that will enable small and medium-sized enterprises, again, to have relatively easy access to funding in order to support some of their building projects. Again, we recently announced the stalled sites fund, which is a £40 million fund and that's to open up sites that are there and ready to go in terms of planning, but for whatever reason haven't been able to be built on—for example, remediation needs to be undertaken in order to make the land suitable for building. So, those small elements that prevent the project from being viable right now, but with this kind of support might make them viable in future. It can also be used in terms of assisting small and medium-sized enterprises with their cash flow as well.

So, I think the innovative housing programme, although we're supporting many different types of housing at the moment, it is all with the purpose of informing us where we need to go in future in terms of building houses at a much greater scale and pace. So, potentially, we could be getting to the point where we start thinking, 'Well, these are the three or four kinds of ways of building homes that really work for us here in Wales and these are the ones that we want to invest in in the future, these are the ones where we can keep the skills here in Wales, where we can build here in Wales.' We've just had the statement on woodlands, so we can be using as much Welsh timber as possible. I think that this is a very exciting agenda in terms of housing, particularly innovative housing. I would imagine that where projects do come forward under the ICF they would be certainly looking at one and two-bedroomed properties because, as Jenny says, these are the kinds of properties that are in short supply and are better suited, particularly, to older people. 

You referred to the lack of choice in housing when people's needs change. Again, this is something that's exciting about the extra-care programmes, which will be supported and which have already been supported, in terms of them being able to adapt to people's needs as their needs change. Again, Jenny referred to new technologies and the exciting opportunities they can present there. I visited Llanelli recently to look at their support for social care, and they were showing me some of the technologies that they deploy. One was a watch that supports people with dementia. So, it's got GPS on it, and the individual can agree, with their families, with their carers, the boundaries where it's safe for them to go—so, areas that they know very well—and if and when the person leaves those boundaries, then the family is informed, and it's a great way of giving families peace of mind but also giving people the independence that they deserve as well. 

The children visiting people through, for example, Dementia Friends projects, I think, is wonderful as well, and I know that it's not just the older people or the people with dementia who get a lot from that as well. I think that the children certainly get a lot from that, and that's something I would be looking to promote as well. I also just recognise the comments that you've made about the importance of the parliamentary review and the real focus that it does put on personalised and person-centred care.