2. What Welsh Government support is available for housing regeneration in the Ogmore valleys? OAQ54534

I thank Huw Irranca-Davies for that. A series of programmes support local housing regeneration in Ogmore, including the Valleys taskforce empty homes grant scheme, social housing grant, Warm Homes, the Welsh housing quality standard, and the innovative housing programmes.

I thank the First Minister for that answer. I'm sure he'll agree with me that, when empty properties stand empty not just for months, but year on year on year, they're a blight on communities—they drag them down economically, they damage efforts at regeneration, and they do contribute to an air of despond in communities and on streets. Like broken teeth, they can stand ragged and broken on our high streets and our side streets, and, sometimes, some of these streets have more broken teeth than others. Yet these could be decent, affordable homes, brought back fit to life, fit to live in, bringing communities back to life as well. So, if landlords and owners are willing to work with their local authority and local communities, we can repair those gaping holes and help regenerate those communities. We can bring the smile back to our streets. So, the empty homes grant and the empty property loans, and other schemes to help landlords and owners do this, are very welcome. And we also need councils to use their powers when that fails. But can I ask the First Minister, how can we make sure that communities are directly involved in these decisions as well? Rather than it being a top-down approach, or something driven by individual landlords or owners, or even by a very proactive local authority, how do we make sure, and would he support the idea, that local communities themselves should be involved in identifying the properties that could be brought back into use, and maybe, in a spatial way, helping the local authority to bring these properties back into use?

I thank the Member for those points. Of course, he is right that empty properties are not simply a wasted asset that could be put to good work, but they have an impact on all of those around them. It's why we decided to invest £10 million as a result of a Valleys taskforce work in bringing more empty homes back into use. And there are hundreds of empty houses in the Member's constituency that, potentially, will be able to benefit now from the scheme began in Rhondda Cynon Taf, and its success has allowed us to spread it elsewhere. The whole of the Valleys taskforce programme has been predicated on learning from the experience of local communities and taking the priorities that they put to us. There was a public engagement event held at Maesteg town hall, in the Member's constituency, at the start of the taskforce engagement, and empty properties were raised as one of the key themes by people who attended that event. Now, the taskforce has been back to the Ogmore, Llynfi and Garw valleys in recent times, and, once again, we were able to explain to people how the new grant will be available and could make a difference to an issue that they raised with us.

So, I completely agree with the point that Huw Irranca-Davies has made, about the need for local communities to be the eyes and ears of our efforts in this area. And I was reminded, Llywydd, in hearing the question, of a conversation that I had with Irish Republic officials about the operation of the vacant land tax in the Republic, where they had had an anxiety to begin with as to how vacant land would get onto the register that they had created, and in practice what has happened is that it is citizens who have turned out to be the eyes and ears of the register. People phone up the local authority, knowing now that there is a register to report to, to make sure that empty land is put on the register and can be put to better use. And I think using local communities and their intelligence on the ground, and their concern for empty properties, now that we have the new scheme, will be a vital source of information.

Well, I'm very pleased to hear that there's a co-productive approach to this. I wonder what the local residents might say to the increase in the number of greenfield sites included in the local authority's replacement local development plan, including 19 hectares south of Pont Rhyd-y-cyff. On that, can you tell me what the Welsh Government's approach, now that it's recently declared a climate emergency—how its approach to a planning authority's view of greenfield sites may have changed? How are you influencing local authorities with that? And to help Huw Irranca Davies out with this, what thoughts have you given to Welsh Conservative policies of extending Help to Buy to first-time buyers to bring neglected houses back into the housing stock and create new homes alongside new-build homes?

I thank the Member for those questions. It's always been the policy of the Welsh Government that brownfield sites should be the first priority in terms of redevelopment. But she asks me what I think the reaction of local residents will be, and I think what local residents will say is that more houses are needed in their areas for their families and for people who don't have the housing that they need, and most people recognise that the house that they themselves live in was once a greenfield site itself. So, actually when you talk to people about the housing needs that are there in local communities, what they recognise is that we are talking about their friends, their neighbours, their families and the need for us to invest in housing here in Wales. 

I read the 10-point plan that the Conservative Party published last week in relation to homelessness, and there are some useful ideas in there, which will be common between us, in making sure that the Vagrancy Act 1824 is repealed, and some other practical measures. I've no sense at all of not being willing to take good ideas wherever they come from, and I've always felt that housing is an issue that is largely shared across the floor of this Assembly as a priority for the people that we represent.