7. What is the Welsh Government doing to aid social landlords to invest in new social housing in Islwyn? OAQ53225

Llywydd, thank you. Amongst the policy measures that the Welsh Government deploys in Islwyn is the provision of social housing grant to social landlords. This measure alone produced over 50 new affordable homes in the area in the last financial year, with more than 50 more to be completed in 2018-19. 

Diolch. First Minister, the right to buy and associated rights will finally be abolished throughout Wales on 26 January 2019, thanks to the Welsh Labour Government. Between 1981 and 2016, over 139,000 local authority and housing association homes were sold under the right to buy, with no ability or capacity for replenishing the social housing stocks to the same levels. This has severely depleted council and social housing stock. First Minister, I tell my constituents in Islwyn that their Welsh Labour Government is committed to creating 20,000 more affordable homes by 2021. What is the Welsh Government doing in Islwyn to support social landlords further, and the local authority, to help us achieve this highly ambitious goal?     

I thank Rhianon Passmore for that. She's absolutely right to point to the depreciation in the number of houses available for social renting as a result of the right-to-buy scheme, and I'm glad that she tells her constituents about our 20,000 more affordable homes, because we are confident that we are well on track to providing that number. In her constituency, she will know—and she will be able to relay to her constituents—the investments that the Welsh Government is making through the social housing grant, through the affordable housing grant, and through our land for housing scheme, which we are confident will help in her constituency to bring more land—we talked here last week about the importance of land in housing—to the market in order to support our ambitions in this area.

And, finally, question 8, Jack Sargeant.