6. Statement by the Minister for Housing and Local Government: Update on the Housing Support Grant

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:07 pm on 11 February 2020.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 5:07, 11 February 2020

Thank you for the welcome. I think it's right to say, as you've acknowledged, that we have worked very hard with stakeholders to produce guidance that everybody thinks is fit for purpose, and I really do think it will produce the joined-up public services we need in this area.

I do think in terms of the money, it is important to say that in the face of very vicious austerity settlements over nine years, we have maintained this; this has not been cut. So, the idea that we're now being somehow denigrated for not having cut it when everything else was cut, I find, very difficult to take. Of course we'd like to put more money into it, but that money must come from somewhere. If there is extra money as a result of the UK budget settlements, then I'd be very happy to discuss with my colleague, Rebecca Evans, putting some of that money into homelessness prevention.

We've also—as I said in response to Mike Hedges, I think, and Delyth, and probably everybody, David Melding as well—got the housing action group working very hard for us, and I want to be certain to be able to action the proposals that come out of that group. I don't know what they are yet, but that is a cross-stakeholder group right across Wales, and I'm sure that they will have a number of things to say to us about the best way to make our homelessness and housing services work together. And I want to be certain that we'll be able to implement those in a timely fashion as well.