Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services – in the Senedd at 2:31 pm on 5 December 2018.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 2:31, 5 December 2018

Well, clearly, Welsh Government is committed to increasing the scale and pace of building, and one of our commitments in 'Prosperity for All' was to work very closely with local authorities to do that. And we're able to do that now as a result of the raise in—or the scrapping of the borrowing limit, which, of course, Welsh Government has been campaigning for for some time. We're well on course to meet our target of 20,000 new affordable homes being built through the course of this Assembly, and today you'll have noticed that we've published 'Planning Policy Wales', which clearly takes us forward, in terms of breaking down some of those barriers in terms of planning. So, ensuring that the areas that are brought forward for planning will genuinely be built on, rather than, as we see at the moment, plots of land being included in local development plans, then they have the impact of raising the value of that land, but actually doing very little to improve the rate of house building. So, I would point to 'Planning Policy Wales' as being an important move forward, in terms of being able to break down some of the barriers that we are seeing to the pace of house building across Wales.