Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:15 pm on 11 February 2020.
I worked with housing support providers before I came to this place, and throughout my time here, since 2003, I've worked on every campaign—this isn't the first one—for Housing Matters every year, before that we had the Let's Keep Supporting People campaign from Cymorth Cymru. Unfortunately, this has become a bit of an annual ritual. Usually, it's produced good news at the end, and I pray that that's the same in this instance.
You say that we know it's not enough to provide funding, but we know that without enough funding, the new grant will not build on the existing duty of local authorities to produce a homelessness strategy. As we've heard, responding to the cash-flat settlement for the grant in the Welsh Government's draft budget, a cut in real terms, Cymorth Cymru, Community Housing Cymru and Welsh Women's Aid warned that services preventing homelessness and supporting independent living have now reached a tipping point. And in north Wales a supported living service provider I recently visited told me the consequences would be increased pressures on the NHS, A&E and blue-light services.
You stated, understandably, that to put more money into this would mean money being taken away elsewhere, but why won't the Welsh Government do what it says in terms of the preventionally intervention agenda and recognise this isn't about taking money from elsewhere, it's about saving multiples more money for elsewhere by taking pressure off statutory services? Smart budgeting in this area, protecting budgets in this area, will save hundreds of millions more for health, social care and other key services.
What plans does the Welsh Government currently have for its planned redistribution of the housing support grant? Key providers in north Wales tell me that the plans that they understand are in place would see five local authorities in the north losing between 25 and 40 per cent of their housing support grant funding. Is that still something under consideration by the Welsh Government? If not, what is its current position in terms of the redistribution previously referred to by it?
As David Melding indicated, you referred to co-production. You talk about engagement with stakeholders and that subsequent advice can be described as co-produced, but you then contradict that by saying the guidance requires local authorities to consult with stakeholders to inform their local strategy, where consultation is the antithesis of co-production and is meant to be the evolution to get us beyond that. So, if this is going to be co-produced, how will the guidance ensure that third sector housing support providers, the key providers of preventionally intervention work in this field, are required to be helping to design and deliver the local strategy with statutory partners at the core, so that we can address some of these other points raised?
Finally, how do you respond to the call by Welsh Women's Aid to ensure that the housing support grant commissioning covers all forms of violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence, rather than, as they say, a default assumption that a focus on domestic abuse meets the varying needs of all survivors of violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence?