6. Will the First Minister update the Senedd on Welsh Government housing support for children leaving care? OQ55749

I thank Dawn Bowden for that, Llywydd. Welsh Government housing support for care leavers includes investment in both physical infrastructure and the services needed to help young people become successfully established in this phase of their lives. Direct help is provided by local authorities and third sector organisations in all parts of Wales.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister, and I thank you for your personal commitment to this issue. The recent report by End Youth Homelessness Cymru highlighted a number of housing issues for young people in and leaving care, including the impact of the local connection rules on their choice of home. Will the Welsh Government look in detail at this report and consider what further action can be taken to assist this group of young people who need and deserve the most effective support we can provide?

I thank Dawn Bowden for that question and for drawing attention to this important report. The End Youth Homelessness coalition, of course, is led by Llamau, an organisation of which I had the privilege of being one of the first three founder members over 30 years ago now. I've read the report; it makes compelling reading, because it speaks in the voice of those young people in Wales who have found themselves threatened with homelessness, or actually experiencing homelessness. I think the reason why I find the report compelling is that those views are translated by the authors of the report into some very straightforward actions, which I think can still be made to improve the system. The simple idea, for example, that if a young person threatened with homelessness—or having experienced homelessness—who's been in care, presents themselves to a local authority, there should be a multidisciplinary case conference called, chaired at a senior level, to make sure that all the things that are needed for that young person are mobilised across the boundaries of services and organisations as fast as possible. The report says that if a local authority places a young person in a different local authority, that when that young person comes to the age of 18, they should not be turned down by that second local authority for help on the grounds that they have no local connection. It's for the young person to decide whether they feel most settled in their new local authority or in their original local authority. It's just that level of translating experiences into practical policy proposals that I think makes this report so valuable, and I know that my ministerial colleagues, both in social services and in housing, will be studying it very carefully to take those lessons and to apply them in the lives of those young people.