Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 3:14 pm on 18 November 2020.
Yes, absolutely. There are a range of different things that are being done. First of all, we've got the optimised retrofit programme that I was talking about earlier, where we need to test out what technology, what skills, what retrofit works for each particular type of house. So, we've got a rapid development of that going on across Wales as we speak. We're coming to the end of the Welsh housing quality standard. We have had to extend it for a couple of councils because of the pandemic, so instead of the end of this year it will be the end of next year when we can finally say that every council and RSL in Wales has made the Welsh housing quality standard. We've got used to the Welsh housing quality standard, but when we started it, it was considered to be ridiculous and completely impossible, and yet here we are; we've largely done it across Wales. And, of course, all the money that we invested in that will then be reinvested to make sure that we do it again, but now in the light of the modern technology coming out of the optimised retrofit programme. As I said earlier in response to Joyce Watson, this isn't just a housing programme across the Government; this is jointly sponsored with myself, the Minister for Education and the Minister for economy, exactly for the reasons that I set out. So, this is about building the industry, building the skills and building the technology here in Wales to be able to solve the problem, going forward, not just for the housing, but actually for the employment and technological and skills ability that comes with it.