Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:41 pm on 29 January 2020.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:41, 29 January 2020

I don't disagree at all that the definition of 'affordable' is unhelpful and rather more flexible than we'd like in terms of what we're trying to do. And we've been very upfront about the numbers in terms of that, because I'm not disagreeing with the fundamental premise of what you're saying, which is, actually, we should build social housing or homes that actually are within people's range without having to have Government help to get them there. But the current definition is that, if you've had Government help to get you into your house, then it's an affordable home. So, I'm not going to argue with you; I don't disagree with the basic premise that you're saying. But the target we set included that definition and so it's being counted against that definition. 

Rather more importantly, we're very engaged now on trying to release land and resources so that we can build social housing. So, that is houses for social rent, and that's either via our councils who are stockholding authorities—the 11 councils who still are stockholding authorities—or via our local housing associations, or both in some areas. So, some stockholding authorities are working hand in hand with the local housing association to bring forward houses for social rent in joint or partial ownership, and in other non-stockholding authorities they're working with their local housing associations to bring them forward. And it is really accelerating fast.

So, from a slow start—if you will remember, councils weren't allowed to use the money that they got from right to buy sales in order to do this, and there were caps on the housing revenue accounts and so on. So, from having that to the Conservative Government finally seeing sense and removing those caps, we've managed to accelerate quite considerably, and I hope very much that this year will see another acceleration of growth in houses for social rent, which is the tenure that's most needed in the Welsh economy.