I call the short debate in the name of Caroline Jones.

Diolch, Llywydd. Next to issues with the NHS, the vast majority of my postbag consists of issues with social housing. Consistent issues with housing associations has led me to question who benefits from social housing. In my experience, it certainly isn't the tenant. When social housing was provided by local councils, they weren't driven by profits and, for the most part, responded to the needs of their tenants.

When the wholesale transfer of council housing took place at the start of this decade and led to the creation of housing associations, it was supposed to herald a new era for social housing. Housing stock would be updated and maintained, and operating profits would be ploughed back into creating new housing stock, putting an end to five to 10-year waits for social housing. Unfortunately, this grand vision hasn't come to pass. Some parts of Wales have seen slight increases in housing stock, while others have seen decreases. We should have been building between 3,000 and 4,000 new social housing units a year. Over the last 10 years, only 6,000 new social housing units have been built. 

The quality of social housing has also not significantly improved. Less than 64 per cent of social housing is fully compliant with the Welsh housing quality standard. Almost 10 per cent is non-compliant: 21,000 families forced to live in housing deemed unfit. With all of this in mind, it is unsurprising that I have been inundated with complaints about the registered social landlords in my region. And the worst culprit I may name is Tai Tarian.

Tai Tarian, formally Neath Port Talbot Homes, was created following the transfer of 9,200 council houses from Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council in 2011. Tai Tarian currently manages 8,978 properties. Last year, they announced the development of 37 new homes, 10 of which were being built upon a sheltered housing site consisting of 20 properties. Fourteen per cent of their properties are not fully compliant with the Welsh quality housing standard. Constituents have contacted me complaining about the length of time it takes to have repairs done. One constituent was told they would have to wait three years for repairs. And constituents have contacted me complaining about rising rents. Constituents have contacted me complaining about draconian increases in maintenance fees. 

In Hogan House, in Aberavon, a couple of the flats are privately owned. Tai Tarian are demanding over £6,000 from each of the residents for updates to Hogan House. How on earth is someone surviving on a meagre state pension supposed to find thousands of pounds they haven't budgeted for? For goodness' sake, this is a small flat, purchased by someone who sacrificed annual holidays and many other luxuries that some of us take for granted in order to own their own home. They are now being told that if they don't like it, they can either leave or sell their flat to Tai Tarian. And the cynic in me wonders if that's not the aim of the exercise: to bully private owners into leaving. 

Constituents have contacted me complaining about the failure to tackle anti-social behaviour, and I've been informed by two residents that they were attacked, separately. Rather than moving the problem tenant, the housing association asked if the victims would like to move.

Constituents have contacted me complaining about the state of their properties following so-called improvements. One constituent got in touch to complain that the removal of balconies from the block of flats left their property in a dangerous state. And residents had complained to Tai Tarian, asking for the installation of safety barriers to prevent someone falling to their death. And twice Tai Tarian has ignored these requests. 

Over and over, tenants have told me that Tai Tarian have been obstructive, objectionable and oftentimes downright abusive. I have been calling on the leadership at Tai Tarian since last year to furnish me with copies of their training records for front-line staff in order to ascertain what training they receive with regard to treating tenants with dignity and respect—something that we uphold in this Chamber. To date, I have been met with radio silence.

In contrast, I had an issue with Coastal Housing that was handled completely differently by that organisation. One of my constituents had complained about the lack of disabled access caused by the lack of maintenance—overgrown brambles and excessive pavement drops were severely limiting wheelchair access. On a walk through, I also witnessed hundreds of discarded petrol, oil and anti-freeze containers. When I submitted the photographic evidence to Coastal Housing, the issues were quickly resolved. However, it shouldn't have taken the intervention of a politician for tenants to get their issues resolved, but at least Coastal Housing acted, unlike Tai Tarian.

All the while this has been going on, Tai Tarian made a profit £5.8 million. Of course, they don't call it profit; it's an 'operating surplus'. But that's after you factor in the directors' pay: the chief executive earns more than the First Minister and the senior directors earn more than twice the salary of a GP.

So, I ask you who benefits from social housing. It's supposed to be the tenants, it's supposed to be those desperately in need of housing and it's supposed to be young people living in poverty. Instead, all my constituents see is social housing being used to enrich a few people at the expense of everyone else.

Registered social landlords operating as not-for-profit organisations have the potential to help reduce poverty by ensuring a ready supply of high-quality housing that is energy efficient and thereby guarantees cheaper rents and lower fuel bills. Many registered social landlords do this and so much more, but not all are so well run and not all housing associations treat their tenants with the dignity and respect that they deserve, and not enough of them put the needs of these tenants first.

This has to change. We are facing a housing crisis of epic proportions over the coming decades, and we can't afford for housing associations to do the bare minimum. The Welsh Government must impose a set of requirements upon registered social landlords to ensure that they improve existing housing stock and build the 3,000 to 4,000 new homes needed each year and every year, whilst not exploiting existing tenants.

It's high time that the tenants were the sole beneficiaries of social housing. I ask Tai Tarian, please, to look at the way that they are treating these tenants. These tenants are on basic minimum wages, salaries and so on, and they deserve dignity and respect, which they're not receiving, and so many have contacted me that it can't be just one or two. Thank you.

The Deputy Presiding Officer took the Chair.

Thank you. Can I now call on the Minister for Housing and Local Government to reply to the debate? Julie James.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I very much welcome the opportunity to look at the importance of social housing and its benefits here in the Chamber today. It's not often I disagree with a Member who's bringing forward a short debate, but I found myself disagreeing quite vehemently with much of what Caroline Jones said. I'm sure she has the individual caseload that she mentions, and there are ways of dealing with that, but the general remarks that she made about the conclusions she draws from her caseload for this sector I very much disagree with.

I firmly believe that, in answer to the question posed in the title of the debate, all of society benefits from social housing. We all benefit from a vibrant, successful social housing system where as many families as possible have access to a safe, warm home and communities are integrated. We all benefit from having homes that would otherwise be out of reach for some of the most vulnerable families, older people and disabled people.

Caroline Jones mentioned a couple of statistics at the beginning of her contribution, which I just wanted to pick up on. First of all, the stock transfer arrangements did not lead to the creation of housing associations—many housing associations have been around for an awful lot longer than that. It did, of course, lead to the creation of some housing associations, which are the ones that received the stock transfer. 

In terms of the Welsh housing quality standard, we have 91 per cent compliance so far with that, and we're not yet at the end of the programme. It's important to remember that we would not expect to be 100 per cent compliant before the end of the programme for that. And actually, compliance in the housing association sector is at near blanket. So, I just wanted to put right a couple of the statistics there, and some of the expectations from that.

There are obviously areas where we may be able to get more homes from our investment in housing, which is why we commissioned the affordable housing supplier review last year, and the recommendations for that will be coming forward in April. And there are other reasons associated with why we haven't been able to build council housing or affordable social housing as fast as we would like, which have been rehearsed in this Chamber already, but I will just mention them again, which were the arrangements relating to the way that the housing revenue accounts were controlled. The removal of the cap has meant that we've been able to send out different arrangements to each of the local housing authorities that have got housing revenue accounts, and to have a discussion with those councils that don't have housing revenue accounts about the best way to take social housing forward. So, I think the picture is a great deal more nuanced than Caroline Jones's contribution might have led you to believe.

I just want to talk a little bit more about why we think that social housing should be and is our top priority. It provides not only quality homes but the support needed to ensure people can sustain their tenancies and thrive. It positively impacts on health, mental health and education, which is why Wales never moved away from support for social housing, not since the Assembly came into existence.

We recognise that social housing requires a greater level of Government subsidy, and we're comfortable with this. We support those for whom our investment can have the greatest impact. That investment can also potentially reduce the cost to the taxpayer in other areas. So, we've driven the standards up in social housing. The Welsh quality housing standard ensures, for example, a category D insulation standard, and in the next iteration of the Welsh housing quality standard, we will be looking to raise that to A. So, there was no way to transform the stock overnight from where it was to A, but we will have a second tranche of that in which we will be discussing raising that standard. 

The new build for houses built by local housing associations, which were the only people who were able to build them until the change I just mentioned, Deputy Presiding Officer, have made sure that all the new homes reach their standard by 2020, and all existing stock will reach it by 2036. Sorry, my eyesight's bad. It's 2036. I thought it said 2038. 

So, I just want to belay the suggestion that Caroline Jones appeared to me to be making, that social housing is somehow substandard, and so on, because it most certainly is not. During the relatively short time I've been Minister for Housing and Local Government, I've seen first-hand just how important secure, good-quality housing is to the health and well-being of the communities we serve.

Our integration agenda is supported by £105 million of the integrated care fund, aiming to improve public services by making collaborative working an explicit requirement for local authorities and health boards, while allowing the space for innovation. While the fund is beginning to support accommodation-led solutions to social care alongside housing and health capital programmes, we are supporting it to move towards developing a more scalable strategic programme of capital investment that has housing at its core. I want to see this accommodation-led approach embedded in the models of care we develop for people and vulnerable groups. I did agree with Caroline Jones that vulnerable groups need specialist accommodation, and that is exactly what we're aiming our integrated care fund at. 

You will all be aware that, as a Government, we committed to delivering 20,000 additional affordable homes during this Assembly term. Homes for social rent will make up the largest proportion of that target, although I recognise that there is a need for additional homes right across Wales. We've invested heavily in social housing and in housing more generally in this term, but we don't have limitless resources. We must think creatively about how we can achieve more from our investment and this is something I've challenged my officials to do. The challenge is also central to the independent affordable housing supplier review we commissioned, which will report at the end of April.

One area where I am convinced that we can see an increase in the delivery of social housing is through local authorities building again, and in that regard I do agree with Caroline Jones. I do think there is a need for local housing authorities to start to build social homes again. Now that that borrowing cap that was imposed by the UK Government has been abolished in Wales, authorities can and will start building again. I've had very good conversations across Wales with local authorities eager and willing to do just that. They can have access to very long-term low-cost finance through the Public Works Loan Board, which I'll be encouraging them to leverage to kick-start ambitious council house building projects across Wales.

I also recognise that there are aspects of the way we utilise our social housing stock that are not perfect across Wales. I've been clear that my ambition is for us to build enough high-quality social housing so that everyone who wants to can access it. Until then, we have to do the best we can to ensure we make the best possible use of our social housing to meet the needs of those who need it most. 

Evicting families from social housing, especially in local authorities who are social housing landlords, makes no sense. Once a family has been made homeless, they are likely to be moved into less secure accommodation or even temporary accommodation, which in the worst-case scenario could be a bed-and-breakfast hotel. The authorities have a duty to support families to prevent homelessness or relieve it where it cannot be prevented. True prevention means supporting families to make a success of their tenancies and remain in their communities. This is what we should be trying to achieve, and this is the point I'll be strongly emphasising to local authorities. This is a conversation I will also be having with housing associations.

So, Caroline Jones mentioned a couple of specifics in her case load that I would very much welcome her sending to me, because I would like to look in more detail at the specifics. But in general, looking to evict somebody who's committing anti-social behaviour is not the way forward. The way forward is to address the anti-social behaviour and contain it and allow the family to continue with their tenancy. So, just to be clear, I think we're not quite on the same page on some of those. 

In these uncertain times, with Brexit unresolved, we remain committed to ensuring that social housing continues to be a priority of Wales. I know from a recent debate that many of us across the floor share the same aspirations for social housing and I'm open to working with Members on this agenda. 

So, to conclude, Deputy Presiding Officer, good-quality social housing is the foundation for strong families and communities, the foundation for good health, and the foundation for a good education. This Government will continue to support this vital asset that benefits all of us. Diolch.

Thank you very much. That brings today's proceedings to a close. Thank you.

The meeting ended at 18:31.