1. Will the First Minister make a statement on the implementation of local development plans in South Wales Central? OAQ53120

The South Wales Central region has complete coverage of local development plans. Local planning authorities, infrastructure providers and developers are responsible for their implementation.

First Minister, in Cardiff West, the area you're supposed to represent, the countryside and green fields are currently being bulldozed to make way for expensive housing that most local people cannot afford. The developments will lead to at least 10,000 extra cars on the road every single day, and these roads are already rammed with lorries thundering through our communities. You have been a Cabinet member since 2013, yet you've not been able to influence any change of Welsh Government policy to protect our communities from this environmental destruction. Well, as First Minister, there is no hiding place any longer, is there, so why are you sitting back and letting the green fields of Cardiff West be trashed by corporate developers?

Llywydd, I can assure the Member that his contribution will be considered with all the seriousness it deserves.

It's a practical question I have. Because of the contiguous nature of the very highly ambitious development plans for housing along the M4, north of Cardiff and westwards, from northern Cardiff in the South Wales Central region, through the neighbouring southern parts of Pontypridd, onto northern Bridgend, there's a heightened imperative to make sure that all the local authorities are talking together, working together, developing their plans together to avoid the situation where a laudable set of ambitious aims in one area leads to the detriment of the laudable aims within another. So, unless there is co-ordination of plans, what we could end up with not only from local authorities, but transport authorities as well, is gridlock rather than releasing the economic potential. Now, the leaders of Rhondda Cynon Taf and Bridgend Country Borough Council are already working together to plan their way through this, but can I ask the First Minister—and, by the way, welcome him to his first First Minister's questions as well—what strategic hand can the Welsh Government play in ensuring that the transport infrastructure is definitely in place to enable the grand plans for new housing to end in hundreds and hundreds of happy home owners not grumpy, gridlocked constituents?

Well, can I thank Huw Irranca-Davies for that important supplementary question? Of course, he is right about that co-ordination between different local authorities who have shared interests in making sure that housing development meets the housing needs of their constituents, and the infrastructure that is necessary to make successful development, and that those local authorities work closely together. The Welsh Government has legislated to create the conditions in which local authorities can come together to create strategic development plans, and I was pleased to see last year Cardiff capital deal authorities coming together to develop such a plan for that wider area. And I look forward in this year to see how that intention turns into practical action. 

At the same time, the Member will be aware, I know, of all the action that is going on to create Bridgend station as a strategic transport hub for the locality, and to make sure that people who live in those new houses—those vitally needed new houses—are able to get to places of work and places of entertainment easily and conveniently from their new homes. 

I think what most politicians can agree, First Minister, is that the current planning system is very cumbersome and doesn't serve many people very well, to be fair. Local development plans get bogged down and, very often, delayed. What priority do you, as a new First Minister, give to revamping the planning system here in Wales, so that we do have a planning system that is fit for purpose, does get the houses built that we require to meet a modern, dynamic economy, and ultimately, does take on the serious concerns that many constituents raise about the provision of GP surgeries, schools and transport infrastructure?

Can I agree with Andrew R.T. Davies that there are a series of concerns about the way in which the planning system the housing system, the transport system interact with one another to the advantage of the citizen? We know that these are challenges that we face not just in Wales; there's been some important work that his party has carried out through Government in Westminster, in London, for example, looking at the reasons why planning permissions granted don't turn into houses built for people who urgently need them. I've seen, of course, the housing policy document that his party has published here in the Assembly. One of the things that it called for was a Cabinet member with responsibility for housing and planning. And he will have noticed, I know, that we have such a Minister here in the Welsh Government.