Thank you, Llywydd. Everyone should be able to live in the community in which they were brought up. The past few months have highlighted just how important it is to have a comfortable home to live in, not just four walls and a roof, but somewhere safe, somewhere comfortable, a home. Not a place, but a refuge. And a home is also part of the broader fabric of society, giving people an opportunity to protect each other and share life experiences.

But in some areas of Wales, an increasing number of homes are disappearing, as they return to being remote four walls and a roof, empty properties in every sense of the words. The problem is huge and is getting worse. Indeed, the situation is becoming critical. Young people can't afford to buy a house in the area where they were brought up because prices have become so inflated by people from outside of those areas buying the homes for leisure purposes over the summer: four walls and a roof, an escape and nothing else; a bolthole, as described by the Daily Mail.

Llywydd, this is a fundamental issue of social justice. The housing market shouldn't allow people to buy secondary properties at the expense of the communities and the people who live in those communities every day of the year. There is something wrong in the market at the moment, and we need intervention. We are talking here about a crisis, and I will outline why this is a crisis. Last year, one in every three homes sold in Gwynedd and Anglesey were sold as second properties. Twelve per cent of Gwynedd's housing stock are houses where the owners live outside the area. This rate is among the highest in Europe.

The purpose of devolution was to empower us as Members of the Senedd to take action for the benefit of the people of Wales when they need us to do so. They need us to do so now. But, at the moment, as Professor Richard Wyn Jones mentioned in a recent article in Barn, there is a powerlessness from Welsh Government. The Government acknowledges that there is a problem, but they are not taking any steps to resolve that problem.

It is disappointing, but not surprising that the Welsh Government, as usual, has decided to delete all of our motion and to put in its place a number of vacuous statements claiming credit for themselves. Point 6 of the amendment talks of having a review of the situation, but the facts are already known. They also talk about taking action as a result of the findings of this review, which is sure to take ages, when this work has already been done by Plaid Cymru. We need action now, not a task and finish group.

In our paper today, Plaid Cymru proposes a number of steps in order to mitigate the situation. These include changes to planning in order to enable communities to limit the numbers of properties that can be bought as second home;, enabling councils to raise a higher council tax premium on second homes and holiday homes; to close the loophole that enables the owners of such homes to register their homes as businesses; increasing the land transaction tax on the purchase of second homes; introducing restrictions on companies such as Airbnb to control the number of homes that are used for short-term accommodation purposes; to look at the possibility of placing local conditions on housing in certain areas; and to redefine affordable housing so it doesn't include homes that cost over £0.25 million.

Not one of these is a silver bullet, and not one is contentious, but, taken together, they could divert the power of the market away from wealthy investors towards ordinary people on low incomes. Wales wouldn't be alone in taking such steps. Indeed, we in Wales are an exception in the fact that we allow this injustice to continue. Nations across the world have taken action in the face of similar circumstances. For example, New Zealand and Denmark have prohibited the sale of homes to people who aren't citizens, and Bolzano in Italy has restricted the sale of holiday homes to people from outside that region. These are just a few examples, and, if Members would want to know more, then Mabon ap Gwynfor from Dwyfor Meirionnydd has done excellent research, sharing dozens of examples on his social media channels.

We call on the Welsh Government to reconsider their intention to delete all of our motion with their amendment. Don't you see that there is a crisis here? Why wouldn't you be willing to use the executive power that you have to help the people and communities who are crying out in pain? Why will you not stand with us? After all, the steps that we are suggesting not only respond to a specific problem; they can also help the Government to deliver some of its current objectives. For example, with the long-term ambition to have 30 per cent of people working from home, by implementing these recommendations, young people could return to their native areas and rejuvenate them, as long as there is affordable housing there for them so that they can live there. And towns that are busy throughout the year are better for the economy than those that simply come to life for a month—places such as Abersoch. This is a plan that makes economic sense as well as social good sense. The Welsh Government needs to wake up from its slumber and to take action in order to ensure that some of our communities don't become towns and villages where most of the properties are empty and where young people find it impossible to purchase a home. We need to rebuild our communities, and we need to take these steps now.

There is a challenge for Government this evening, Llywydd: take action now or injustice for young people will remain, our culture will be dimmed, and, like Capel Celyn, some of our communities will sink into the pit of history. You have the power. Use that power.