Although I'm not a member of this committee, I would like to commend them for what I think is a really important piece of work. We'll have all seen the shocking findings from Shelter that, across Britain, the highest number of children for 12 years will be in temporary housing this Christmas. Now, Welsh rates are lower than elsewhere in the UK but are still up over a quarter over the last four years. Austerity and savage welfare changes have much to answer for. But one solution to this is to turn empty properties into homes and it's really good to see that this report gives us a chance to focus on this concept today. For my contribution, I wanted to focus on what my local authority, Rhondda Cynon Taf, is doing to deal with empty homes, and their empty homes strategy has been mentioned in the report, so I thought it would be useful if I explored it in the Chamber in greater detail. 

The council developed the policy because they recognised that the empty homes in the borough presented an opportunity to provide much-needed affordable housing for residents, and also recognised the problems caused by deserted homes. They can cause harm to community well-being, distress to residents affected by their unsightly appearance, and act as magnets for crime and for antisocial behaviour. So, over the last few years, RCT council has developed a range of different tools and approaches to encourage empty homes to be brought back into use. And I'll just run through some key elements of their strategy.

The first is housing enforcement activity; secondly, the provision of Houses into Homes loans, utilising Welsh Government repayable funding; the third is the provision of grants, utilising the council's own funding, and that came to over £4 million in the years 2016-17 alone; fourthly, affordable housing schemes that bring empty homes back into use; five, advice and assistance to potential home owners; the sixth strand of it is the provision of homes above retail premises in town centres, and that's been a particular success in Aberdare, bringing historic empty buildings back into use; seventh is removing the 50 per cent council tax reduction for empty homes, and key to this has been the council's discretionary empty homes grant, and that supports the delivery of the council and Welsh Government's investment priority of returning empty properties to use.

It offers suitable accommodation for local people, but also helps to regenerate wider communities too. Robust eligibility criteria are also put in place to ensure the sustainability of the scheme. So, crucially, for example, applicants must be potential owner-occupiers, not landlords, who plan to live in the property as their main residence for a period of at least five years. The property must have remained unoccupied for a period of six months prior to purchase and at the time of the grant application, it must meet the housing needs of the applicants' family who intend to occupy the property, and applicants are required to make a 15 per cent maximum contribution to the total cost of grant-eligible work. That grant can be anywhere from £1,000 to £20,000, and is then used to make the property safe and secure.

The initiative has been an overwhelming success. Since 2016 it has been used directly to bring 165 empty homes back into use, and, overall, the council's approach to tackling empty homes is having a significant impact on the number of empty homes across the borough. So, if you look at council tax records, for example, they show that between 2017-18 and 2018-19, the period that the empty homes strategy was actually implemented, the number of empty homes across the borough has reduced by 671 properties. I think that's a really outstanding figure. Furthermore, in the last financial year, RCT brought a total of 213 empty homes back into use directly from council intervention. At 7.4 per cent, this is an increase on the previous year and nearly 3 per cent above the Welsh average.

RCT's approach to tackling empty homes is bold and forward-looking. I'm really glad that the Welsh Government have recognised their practice as sector-leading. In particular, it's excellent news that the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport, as chair of the Valleys taskforce, has agreed to provide funding of £10 million to roll out RCT's empty homes grant across all Valleys taskforce authorities. RCT will act as the lead body and co-ordinate the delivery of the grant. This successful investment will further support and accelerate the number of empty homes being brought back into use across the whole of the Valleys. I was very pleased to join the Deputy Minister, the Minister for housing, councillors and officers from RCT for the announcement of this roll-out in Ynysybwl, and I look forward to following the future progress of the policy.