4. Statement by the Minister for Housing and Local Government: Homelessness

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:56 pm on 8 October 2019.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 3:56, 8 October 2019

Thank you very much for that contribution. I very much welcome the spirit in which you gave it. Just a couple of points, really. On the data, I agree with you completely. We've just taken on another data analyst to do justice, so we're having an analysis done of where the gaps are and what we need to do to get it. I must say that I've been quite startled by some of the things we don't know, so we're putting in place a whole series of things that we need to understand better, and one of the things that the action group is looking at is what data sets we need in order to be able to fill that in. So, I completely agree with the remarks you made on that.

And in terms of youth homelessness and the care leavers issue in particular, I am working on a cross-public-sector pledge that I hope we will be able to deliver—it’s more helpful if it’s cross-party—where we agree across public services in Wales that no-one is ever evicted into homelessness. So, if we can pull that off, I think we will have made a big step forward in where we are.