Diolch, Llywydd. I'm very pleased to be able to brief Members on the third year of the innovative housing programme. We cannot ignore the scale of the housing challenges we are facing. We are not building enough homes, we are in the midst of a climate emergency we must act upon, our population is ageing, and the availability of traditional house building skills is in decline. The IHP programme identifies and tests solutions to these problems. It stimulates the design and delivery of new, high-quality, affordable homes through new housing models, new delivery pathways and new construction techniques.

Wales is at the vanguard of housing innovation, creativity and new thinking. How do I know this? Firstly, the programme is hugely oversubscribed. It is a record-breaking third year, with 52 applications for the programme from a mixture of both public and private sector organisations. I have received bids this year totalling in excess of £230 million.