8. Plaid Cymru Debate: Building Social Housing in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:31 pm on 6 March 2019.

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Photo of David Melding David Melding Conservative 4:31, 6 March 2019

First of all, there's evidence out there, so these are not figures that I've plucked out of thin air, or that you have. I know that you've also been greatly influenced, as I was three years ago, by the report of Professor Holmans. And my broad assessment is that we need about 40 per cent non-market homes and 60 per cent market, which coincidentally seems to be what you're calling for—you said 20,000 social homes in a five-year term if Plaid Cymru is elected at the next election, and, by my calculation, that leaves 30,000 to be provided by the market, of which some of that will also be assisted buying by the various schemes. But I prefer to talk about market provision and non-market. Social is clearly the non-market element of that, but a 40:60 split does seem to me a reasonable estimate. And, as Mike indicated earlier, there have been times indeed when we've built more non-market homes than market. So, we need solutions; it's pointless getting hooked up on ideology. We need homes that people can afford, whether they're buying them or whether they are renting them. 

I think, perhaps, where I might differ from some of your emphasis, though I don't think this divides us at all, is I think the old model of just allowing councils to build vast estates—in fairness to you, you did say you didn't think that was an appropriate model and you want mixed tenure and probably smaller schemes. But I do think you need to look at housing associations, because they are the principal resource we have at the moment, but also remember there are many people now who will not get the best home or the home they deserve, the home that their family needs and the space their children will require. They will not get that, despite being, from a historical perspective, way above the threshold for social housing, because the market has driven up the price of housing so much that we now have people on really what, in previous generations, would be regarded as quite high incomes, and those people, I think, are going to need other models. Co-operative models are very important, I think, and are used internationally. Leanne talked about pension funds investing in this sort of provision, quite probably—larger apartments for family living, but rented long term so that you're not, every two or three years, worrying whether you'll still be able to stay in your home. So, we need lots and lots of approaches.

But the one thing I think is really important is that we move towards a consensus. We've been arguing for too long on this, and the Welsh Government doesn't have a great record in terms of house building—I should whisper this bit now and I hope my colleagues are not listening—but the UK Government hasn't had a great record either. I'd certainly say, since the financial crisis, in the UK, we've simply not been building enough houses, and we need to start to do that.

Can I just finish by saying that there are some failures in the market, without any question? The market, in general, has not given us all the answers we need, and there are some poor developers out there, but they're not all poor. This thought that all these new private estates are somehow a blot on the landscape, that they don't have good infrastructure, and that the planning authorities have not put in school provision: I mean, that is not typical of the type of development we get in the UK and in Wales under both Governments. We have a very tightly designed planning system and it does broadly deliver, but I do take the point that there have been cases where there's been really quite poor practice, and we certainly need more developers in there, SMEs using smaller sites, and more community sign-ups so that people realise that their own communities are going to benefit from people having access to decent housing. I thank you for indulging me, Deputy Presiding Officer.