Diolch. I'm pleased to open this debate on a motion that should be non-controversial. I'm going to start by repeating something I said in the Conservative debate on housing a couple of months ago. Between 1997 and 2007, just 825 new units of social housing were built each year, and that only increases to 850 each year in the last 10 years. But the Public Policy Institute for Wales estimates that we need between 3,300 and 4,200 additional units of social housing every year—just 850 homes when we need over 4,000. The gap is absolutely staggering. Nobody disputed those figures then and I don't expect anyone to dispute those figures today. So, instead, my colleagues and I want to focus on why we haven't been able to meet an aspiration that apparently everybody wants.

First of all, I think we need some clarification on what exactly we're talking about. Too often, we've seen the term 'affordable housing' used interchangeably with 'social housing', hence the Welsh Government's claim of being on track for delivering 20,000 affordable homes. Currently, we're in the position where 'affordable' is defined within the context of technical advice note 2. This definition also includes homes owned through shared equity schemes, including Help to Buy. This means that, since the 2016 election when the target of 20,000 affordable homes was brought in, the 3,458 homes sold through Help to Buy since will be counted towards that target. Now, this is a particular issue when we consider that 1,390 of those homes—that's 40 per cent of those homes—were sold for over £200,000. There's clearly a misuse, therefore, of the term 'affordable'. How many first-time buyers can really save up and afford to buy a home at £200,000? So, that's why we've proposed to create a target for 20,000 new social housing homes in a Plaid Cymru term of Government, to separate social housing out from the private sector. We of course want to make private sector housing more affordable for both people renting and for those who want to buy, and our housing paper contains many ideas for doing just that. But today, I'm focusing on social housing in the proper sense of the term, to refer to homes owned by housing associations and local authorities. And we badly need more. 

The rise in homelessness over the past decade is something that has been noted in this Senedd on numerous occasions. We have, of course, debated the need for a housing first policy to ensure that everyone gets a home and that we can end rough-sleeping. And, of course, there's a comprehensive plan for doing that already written by Crisis. That plan is reliant upon building more social housing and the reality is, though, that austerity has hindered the sector's ability to build more social housing. Social security cuts, in particular the cumulative impact of housing benefit changes, have changed the business model of housing associations. They've faced reduced incomes from rent, which may have jeopardised investment in more homes. They've also had to face increased administration costs in chasing more arrears, and, of course, the substantial costs of rehousing people who've been impacted by the bedroom tax. In fact, housing associations put the cost of dealing with just the disabled people who are affected by the bedroom tax at some £40 million. No wonder we didn't have the investment in social housing that we needed.

But there is a wider impact of austerity on availability of housing as well, and that has made the planning of the required public services needed to serve new housing developments far more difficult. Let's imagine two proposals for development are given to a local community. The first is a properly planned housing estate with a mixture of social housing and private sector housing. It's accompanied by significant investment in transport, green spaces, and supported by a new school and a doctor's surgery. The second proposal is for an estate built by one of the large developers, with a small quota reserved for 'affordable housing' and a joke section 106; there are few green spaces, and the previous performance of the developer—which, of course, can't be regarded as a material matter in planning law—suggests that the estate may well end up being unfinished for years, parts of it a muddy building site with unadopted roads, and the existing public services in the community will simply have to cope, because there is no money to invest to accommodate the new community. Which of these proposals do you think will attract the support of the community—