Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:32 pm on 16 September 2020.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:32, 16 September 2020

Thank you, Delyth. Again, you've ranged over a couple of issues there in your questions and comments. So, on the first one, of leaseholds, we've had the Law Commission's report now, and there are a number of things there that the UK Government needs to do, but there are some things that we can do. You'll be aware that we've already moved to stop leasehold sales in anything that the Welsh Government has supported with subsidy—so, in the Help to Buy schemes, for example—and that's been very effective in doing that. We are looking at ways of assisting leaseholders with changes to the rules, and so on, around how you acquire the freehold. But we are working in conjunction with the UK Government over the Law Commission's really comprehensive report, which is being worked through—it hasn't been out that long. So I share your concern about the sale of leasehold properties.

Actually, one of the other issues—and my colleague Ken Skates has had a working group looking into this—is not just where houses are sold as leasehold, but where people buy a freehold house, but then they discover that the management of their estate is part of a company, because actually the roads haven't been adopted. So one of the things we are looking at is an adoptable standard for roads right across Wales—it varies from authority to authority at the moment—and actually increasing the arm of local authorities in being able to negotiate that those roads and sewerage and water and all the rest of it are brought up to standard and adopted as part of the 106 procedure.

Then turning to the issue around affordable homes and what can be negotiated as part of that 106 procedure, I don't quite share your analysis of where the Planning Inspectorate is, but we are very concerned that the local authority is put into a strong position in terms of negotiating what contribution is necessary from the developer, both in terms of affordable homes and actually in terms of necessary infrastructure to support the housing development. Because we also don't want to see housing developments isolated away from facilities, with no active travel, no green infrastructure, and so on. So, there are a number of things in 'Planning Policy Wales' that are advancing that. Shortly, I will be bringing forward the national development framework for Wales—next week I think it is—into the Senedd. And you'll be aware that, as part of the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Bill, we're proposing regional arrangements to bring the strategic regional arrangements into place. All of those things will assist the local authorities in negotiating higher affordable housing targets. And the last thing I want to mention is that you'll know that we're also insisting that, on Welsh Government land—and I'm working with other public landowners to extend this—there is 50 per cent of affordable housing on all Welsh Government land that goes to housing now.