I'm going to open this debate with a quote from the previous chief executive of the Home Builders Federation, and I quote:

'All the signs are that, without effective action taken now, Wales is heading for a housing crisis equal to or possibly worse than in the rest of the UK…We are urging the Welsh Assembly that unless urgent action is taken, the country's housing crisis will have severe consequences on the future growth and prosperity of the country as a whole.'

Llywydd, those words were actually spoken in 2004—15 years ago. We've had at least 15 years of warning, perhaps even longer according to other experts, yet here we are trying to combat a broken housing market, which is now one of the greatest barriers to social well-being, and it's hurting ordinary working people the most. 

Only yesterday, Shelter released a report that began with a stark truth about the failures of policy making in the UK in relation to housing and home ownership. I do urge people to at least read the executive summary. I think it's a really important document. If I can quote what the report says:

'we live in a country that is feeling the effects of 40 years of failure in housing policy.'

It's important to be candid here and not to avoid the implications of that for all parties, I think, that have been in Government.

The drop in the number of young families moving into ownership—the report points out the rise of pensioners in insecure, unaffordable private rentals, and the homelessness that scars our society are all everyday reminders of this policy failure. 

The report goes on to predict that unless we tackle this issue head-on, a generation of young families will be trapped renting privately for their whole lives. By 2040, the report calculates that as many as one third of 60-year-olds could be renting privately, facing unaffordable rent increases or eviction at any point. 

The need for a holistic and cohesive strategy to tackle this issue has never been clearer, and the need for a cross-party consensus has never been more needed. All of us in public life have been part of the problem. Now we must join together and build a policy to solve the crisis. This, Llywydd, is what today's debate is all about. Today I urge all Members to support our motion, which puts on record that this Assembly recognises that we simply haven't done enough and we need to do much more. 

Already, the UK Government has begun to recognise the scale of the task ahead of us, and that is what we now need to do here in the Assembly. The UK Government has established a target of 300,000 new homes per year, a target they hope to meet in the 2020s. Indeed, it's one of the reasons that Shelter has issued the report, and it comments on that target quite extensively. 

For those on the front line, the housing crisis means struggling to pay your mortgage or not being able to pay your rent. Others worry about where they'll spend the next night, some ending up, as we know, on the streets, sleeping rough. We cannot allow this to continue. Housing is a basic need and the right to decent housing is as important as the right to healthcare. One thing is certain, we need to build more homes. Many more homes—we believe at least 100,000 new homes in Wales in the 2020s.

To achieve this, clearly we need a new political consensus, because if there's a change of Government or there's a coalition, whatever happens in terms of those responsible for making policy, there must be that consistency that comes from a deep political consensus. That is what we had after the second world war in a 25-year period when both political parties and the other minor parties that were involved in scrutinising that work committed to ambitious housing targets and achieved remarkable things, I think, for the people of Wales and the whole of the UK.