Questions now from the party spokespeople. Conservative spokesperson, Mark Isherwood. 

Diolch, Llywydd. COVID has shown us just how important it is to properly fund services that take pressure away from statutory services. Services funded by the housing support grant play a vital role in preventing homelessness and reducing costs, particularly to health and social services. Homelessness and housing support workers have been at the forefront of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, having helped over 4,000 people receive emergency accommodation and support, as well as continuing to support thousands of others to avoid homelessness. In order for this to be sustained, there needs to be a large increase in the housing support grant in the Welsh Government's budget, taking account of the fact there has been no inflationary increase in this grant for 10 years. Are you able to tell us whether this will happen? 

I thank Mark Isherwood for the question and the acknowledgement of the incredibly hard work that's been done across homelessness services by statutory services, by voluntary and third sector services. I'm always happy to have another opportunity to pay tribute to the extremely hard work, the fortitude and sheer resilience of the service. My tribute to the people at the front end of that service is absolutely heartfelt, because what we've managed to achieve in Wales in that period of time is just extraordinary. As he said, we now have over 4,000 people who've been housed through phase 1 of the homelessness service.

And absolutely, of course, it's not just about housing people in terms of four walls and a roof; it's about the support services that go with that, all the support services necessary to sustain somebody in that tenancy. So, I absolutely am incredibly grateful to all of the services and the umbrella organisations. Cymorth, in particular, has been extremely supportive all the way through in helping sustain that. Mark Isherwood will not be surprised to find that, however, I am not going to pre-empt the Welsh Government budget, which he knows will be published in draft on 21 December, and he wouldn't expect me to do so.  

In your statement of 23 November, you accepted in principle the recommendations in the third and final report of the homelessness action group, including taking forward earlier intervention and preventative activity so that people do not become homeless in the first place. Evidence shows that nearly 50 per cent of single homeless people first became homeless before the age of 21, highlighting the need for earlier intervention and preventative activity focused on youth homelessness to significantly reduce the number of homeless people overall. The homelessness action group's report makes it clear that an increase in the housing support grant is needed in order to set Wales on a path to end homelessness. Next week's budget is therefore an opportunity to turn that into reality. Front-line homelessness and housing support staff have been exceptional during this pandemic, but we know that reductions in real-term budgets mean that they are in desperate need of extra funding to ensure they get the recognition and the support they need. Given that the housing support grant now goes to local authorities for distribution, what assurance at all can you provide that they will receive an increase at local authority level in the grant, and will you encourage local authorities to commission services that provide this key recognition and support for staff working in such challenging circumstances?

As I said, Mark Isherwood, I'm not going to be pre-empting the budget statement that my colleague, Rebecca Evans, will make next week, or the local government settlement announcement, which I will make the day after that, for obvious reasons. However, I'm really grateful for your acknowledgement of the incredible hard work that the sector has put in. I think we should be really proud of Wales. It's in stark contrast to what has happened across the border, of course, where homelessness services have started to slide back. We, unfortunately, have seen some small slippage of people back onto the streets, but it's very, very minor compared to the numbers of people that we've been working with, and I can assure Members of the Senedd that every single one of the people that we know have slipped back onto the streets is in receipt of assertive outreach services, so we know who they are and we're working with them to get them back into services as soon as possible.

I will take this opportunity, Llywydd, to just correct something that Caroline Jones said about the number of veterans sleeping out. The veterans pathway is working very well in Wales, and we do not have large numbers of veterans back on the streets, counter to what the Member said in her previous question.

Well, I will emphasise the questions I've raised with you were raised with me by the sector, who deserve the full praise that we've both given them, but also are desperately worried that this year's budget won't repeat previous years' and that they won't get the uplift they need, given the fantastic job they've done and the essential role they play.

If I may now finish by moving to the housing market more broadly, reflecting concern raised with me by estate agency businesses in Wales working in our cross-border regions, following today's announcement that Wales will go into a level 4 lockdown—the highest possible—from 28 December, with non-essential shops in Wales to close at the end of trading on Christmas Eve. As they state, the housing market itself is buoyant. Consumers are anxious to secure completion before the end of the land transaction tax holiday on 31 March, yet estate agents in Wales operating in the border towns will once again be disadvantaged, with competitor agents in England being open. As they also state, estate agents are COVID-secure, and the housing market has remained open next door in England throughout lockdowns and tier 3 restrictions there. So, they need to know: what scientific evidence to close the housing market does the Welsh Government have that England doesn't?

Thank you for that question, Mark Isherwood. Obviously, we face one of the most dire situations in terms of the pandemic that we have faced so far. The numbers are truly horrifying, and going up in every area of Wales bar Ynys Môn. I have, only today, met with all of the local authority leaders and chief executives, and they are as one in thinking that we should do something about these figures before our health service is unable to cope. So, although my heart goes out to anyone who is trying to move in these circumstances, and of course we've got to balance harms against economic harms to the industry and so on, in the end we are in the middle of a global pandemic, and Wales's figures are nothing to be sanguine about. So, I'm afraid that we must put the public health first. I will, however, be working with the industry to try and keep as much of it open as possible. For obvious reasons, we would not want people to be viewing houses where somebody is in residence and so on, but I'm sure we will be able to work with the industry to make sure that at least some parts of the market stay open.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Delyth Jewell.

Thank you, Lywydd. Minister, over the past 20 years, the number of homes in Wales privately rented has more than doubled. Although there was a small decline over recent years, it's still true to say that over 200,000 homes are rented by private landlords, and, as a percentage term, this was the only tenure that had increased over that period. Homes owned by the person living in the home and social housing have both declined over the same period. Is this a trend that you'd like to see increasing over the next 20 years?

No. Very much no, Delyth. You'll be aware, from the many conversations that we've had that we'd very much—. Although the private rented sector has its place to play in terms of accommodation, and we're very grateful to the very many good landlords we have across Wales for providing good homes for people, nevertheless, we'd very much like to see an increase, in particular in houses for social rent. As a result of the cap being removed from the housing revenue accounts only a few short years ago, we've worked really, really hard with councils and RSLs across Wales to ramp up the building of homes for social rent in particular. I'm really pleased that we've made the target—the 20,000 affordable homes target—but it's the social rent part of that that's most needed. And you'll know from the long conversations we have, and I know that we share the ambition, that the way to do—you know, we need to ramp that up as fast as possible. So, we've been working very hard, through our innovative housing programme, as well as just through our normal building routes, to ramp up builds by both our registered social landlords and our stock-holding councils to get as many social homes built and into the market as possible. And, of course, we have a number of schemes aimed at taking in private rented accommodation into the social housing market, either on a five-year rolling basis, or indeed, we've allowed councils to buy them where that's appropriate. 

Thank you, Minister. I know that we are agreed on a number of these areas. I think, indeed, that there is a general consensus that we need to reverse that trend that I've just set out with the need, as you've said, for more social housing and more support for young people to escape from renting—for some people, they choose to rent, but some people are forced into it and we need to ensure that people can have alternatives.

Although we've seen a small decline in the number of homes privately rented since the introduction of the requirement to register as a landlord, there's been nothing like the exodus from the sector that was threatened when Governments started to talk about putting this sector under appropriate regulation. So, could I ask whether the Government will strengthen the regulations in that sector, as many would argue that we need to strengthen the quality and security of tenancy for tenants? After all, people shouldn't just have assurances over the Christmas period alone. 

Absolutely, Delyth; I couldn't agree more. One of the reasons that we passed, in this Welsh Parliament, the Renting Homes (Wales) Act back in 2016 was to do exactly that—to change the balance, really, between tenants and landlords in the private rented sector and give people much more security of tenure. You'll know that we're looking at the Renting Homes (Amendment) (Wales) Bill at the moment to improve, once again, on that Act, as four years have gone by and we're very happy, always, to look at improvements.

Unfortunately, because of COVID-19, we've not been able to implement the Renting Homes (Wales) Act with the speed that we'd like. I've been very keen to see all parties in this Senedd commit to doing that in election manifestos so that whoever makes up the Government after May would be committed to bringing that Act into force as soon as it can be managed. There are a number of statutory instruments that still need to be completed and a number of pieces of work with Rent Smart Wales and the landlords associations and so on that need to be completed for a smooth transition. But we've solved many of the issues that we had that stopped us from implementing it, and so, it's a matter of some frustration to me that we haven't been able to do that as a result of the pandemic.

I'm really proud of having done that in Wales, and I would reiterate your point, actually: we're always being told by a very small minority of landlords that any change we make will see a mass exodus from the market, and so on. None of the figures ever bear that out. And the good landlords know that we aren't doing anything that they will have any problem with; it's only rogue landlords who have anything to fear from this.

Thank you for that, Minister. You mentioned in your previous answer about COVID-19 and the effect that that's had on so many aspects of the housing market. Now, it's clear that the restrictions that have been in place this year have been experienced differently by different groups of people. We've spoken about this many times. But, the difference reflects wider inequalities in our society. It's clear, for example, that people living in crowded accommodation without access to green and blue space will be more likely to experience longer term problems than people who have been able to shelter in large houses with gardens. Given this, can I ask you, Minister: will you be looking at expanding green and blue space requirements for new developments in planning? And, finally, will you be looking at how you could retrospectively improve access to those spaces for existing estates, for example, by increasing protections for those spaces against new developments and ensuring that we regard access to these green and blue spaces as a right? 

Yes, Delyth, I'm really interested in doing that. So, there are some short-term things that we have learned in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. So, for example, even at level 4, we are asking our local authorities to work very hard to make sure that parks and playgrounds stay open where it's safe for them to do so, and they have the staffing that makes that possible. We know that not everywhere in Wales, because of a number of local issues—. It will not be possible to keep every park and playground open, but we've asked them to keep them open where at all possible, so that, particularly, people in built-up urban areas have the parks that ought to be available still available to them. I know that local authorities have very much taken that on board in learning from the earlier parts of the pandemic.

Also, one of the things that I'm very sad about is that we lost the ability to put Part L of the building regs into effect in this Senedd term. Again, there was cross-party agreement. I think that David Melding was the spokesperson on the Conservative benches at that time, but there was a lot of agreement between yourself, me and him about what was necessary. And, of course, that is all about space, standards, and access to good quality environment. Again, I don't think it's controversial. I very much hope that we'll be able to do that—that all the major parties, anyway, in the Senedd will be able to include that as part of their manifesto commitments, so that we can do that as speedily as possible once we are through the pandemic and we have some legislative space to do so.

In the meantime, of course, we are very keen that people understand that they do need to get outside, even in built-up urban areas where it's difficult. You will be aware of the medical advice to take vitamin D supplements if that's not possible. I would like to reiterate that advice, given the opportunity to do so.