1. Will the Minister make a statement on the Welsh Government’s strategy to build more homes? OAQ53435

The delivery of additional homes is a key priority for the Welsh Government, as set out in the national strategy. We're using all levers available to us to encourage house building and are making a record investment in housing during this Assembly term.

Deputy Minister, your own Government estimates that around 8,300 homes need to be built every year, and according to the Federation of Master Builders in Wales, only 6,000 were built last year. Now, the Federation of Master Builders states that the planning process is too complex and too expensive, and that recent evidence suggested that the housing market had become dominated by a small number of very large firms. They've estimated that around three quarters of new houses were being built by five large firms. In order for you to reach your targets and to give smaller Welsh firms more opportunities, will you now look to review the guidance issued to local authorities in order to make sure that the planning process is less complicated and less expensive, so that smaller businesses are able to build more new homes?

The Member will be aware that a revised national planning policy for Wales has already been published, which is aimed at helping address housing delivery issues by introducing more rigour and challenge into the plan-making process in terms of allocation of housing sites. Both myself and the Minister did meet with the federation recently, to talk through those concerns that you've raised, but also, actually, we're taking steps as a Government to make sure that we are helping to support those small to medium enterprises, particularly those Welsh-based ones, to be able to work with us towards our ambitious targets of 20,000 new homes. One of the schemes that the Minister recently announced to assist us in doing this is the Self Build Wales project, which will help address some of those collective previous barriers of planning, finance and access, and open up the market to more small and medium enterprises in the process.

We know that the large house builders benefit from scarcity of housing as it increases the prices they can charge for new builds. And as Paul Davies outlined, we've got a small number of very large builders who dominate the market. One method of increasing housing supply is self-build and self- managed build. Will the Government ask local authorities, outside the local development plans, to identify sites for five or fewer dwellings that can be either self-built or the building can be self-managed so that we bring houses into use, help small builders and help people become home owners?

Thank you, Mike Hedges, for your question. You make some incredibly valid and interesting points. As I've already referred to, the latest iteration of 'Planning Policy Wales', specifically, now requires local planning authorities to maintain a register of small sites. And as I've previously mentioned, we've announced £40 million to support new and innovative Self Build Wales schemes, and as part of that, officials are currently engaging with local authorities to identify suitable sites for self-build, potentially on the scale that you've mentioned in your question. Clearly, it's for local authorities to determine which sites are put forward for the scheme, but myself and the Minister look forward to seeing those sites start to come through in the coming months. 

Deputy Minister, it's my belief that there are some key measures that we can take to address our housing needs that don't involve having to build new homes, and one such example is RCT council's schemes to bring back empty properties into usage. Three hundred and twelve empty property grant applications have been received since the scheme began in 2016, and to date, 128 of those homes have now been brought back fully into use, with £2.4 million being spent through the empty properties grant. So, do you agree with me that this sort of scheme provides a very sustainable way in which we can address the housing shortage, and are there any plans to ensure that other local authorities can learn from this best practice?

Thank you, Vikki Howells. Absolutely, I certainly welcome the efforts and the work of Rhondda Cynon Taf and other authorities in terms of how we actually create new homes by bringing empty buildings back into use. And it's something I particularly feel passionate about now in my role of leading in terms of regeneration, how we can link that up holistically, not only regenerating and bringing back to life a community and a town centre, but also, actually addressing housing needs and decent housing needs in the process.

We know there are many reasons as to why homes are lying empty, so there needs to be a range of tools available to bring them back into use. So, I've asked officials to explore how we can better support local authorities in using their enforcement powers to bring empty homes back into use, and I think this is an area where we can definitely add more value.