[Inaudible.]—somebody else is in charge of the mute, obviously, and had muted me.

Conservative spokesperson, Laura Jones.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I first start by saying 'thank you'? Although short, it's been a pleasure holding the shadow portfolio opposite you, Minister, and I appreciate—and I'm sure Mark does—all your constructive responses.

Minister, can you tell me how this Government is working with local authorities to ensure that, when considering sites for local development plans, they do not choose sites that score negatively in all areas after impact and sustainability assessments have been done in areas such as biodiversity, health, well-being, transport, historic development, air quality, flood risk, et cetera, and where there are no specific schools or doctors that would be able to cope with large-scale developments, specifically when those developments are on greenfield sites? It makes no sense, and it flies in the face of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. The environmental impact of building on such sites just shouldn't happen. Why has local campaigner Gruffudd Parry, and a very strong local group, had to highlight to me what Torfaen council are trying to get away with proposing in their latest LDP? Surely, your Government should have checks in place. What checks are in place, Minister, to ensure that local authorities are not going against everything that you're trying to achieve here in this Senedd?

I'm very happy to reassure Laura Jones on the LDP position. We have, as she will know, just issued 'Future Wales', the national development framework, and the reissued 'Planning Policy Wales' to go alongside it. That means that, actually, all local authorities need to review their LDP in the light of those documents—those going through the process of setting their LDP, and those who have got an existing LDP in place. I've written out to local authorities to highlight the need to do this, and they need to factor that now into their planning process. Those documents, of course, reference all of the things that she just mentioned. It's very much the centre of our placemaking approach to planning that those things are taken into account.

Of course, the planning process itself, as she has just mentioned, takes you through an examination in public, which is there precisely for the reason that she outlined—in order to enable the public to be able to probe or question or make sure that the evidence is available, to make the plan as robust as it can be. That's the whole point of a plan-led process—to democratise the process, to allow local people to have their say about it, and for others to make sure that the council is indeed doing what it should do, which is to take into account all of the various things that make a place the community that we want it to be. So, the very fact that you know about it, and that people are able to challenge it, shows me that the position is working. Of course, that's the whole purpose of the entire process of the plan, which can be frustrating, of course, because it takes quite a long time to go through, and people get frustrated the other way. But I think it's worth it in the end, because you do get a plan that the local community owns, and we don't get a one-size-fits-all approach everywhere in Wales.

Can I also say, Laura, that it's been a pleasure to work with you, and with Mark as well? I know we have our spats in public, but we've had many opportunities to work constructively as well, behind the scenes, and I'm grateful for it.

Thank you, Minister. I'm very pleased with your response just now, and I'm sure the local campaign group will be too. Because these sorts of sites shouldn't come around in the first place, in my opinion. We shouldn't have to go through all the cost of having to make checks on things that everybody knows are not suitable.

However, the coronavirus has had a major impact on individuals and families across the UK, as we know. But when it comes to children and young people in care, as we've discussed in the past, or children that have been previously looked after, these issues are obviously significantly amplified. What discussions have you had, and what consideration have you given, to long-term support for exactly the people that I've just outlined, to make sure that they are adequately supported going forward? Thank you. 

Obviously, children coming out of care are not in my portfolio, but I work very closely with Julie Morgan, with Vaughan Gething and with my colleague Kirsty Williams to make sure that we have a cross-Government plan for people coming out of care, looked-after children and so on. We work very closely with the Welsh Local Government Association to make sure that we have a joined-up approach. So, it depends on which particular aspect you're looking at. 

In terms of housing, for example, we've been making sure that we have a plan to make sure that we have a pathway for people coming out of care, that we have the right kind of housing and the right kind, more importantly, of support around that housing to make sure that where young people do go into a tenancy alone, or with a number of others, that they have the right support arrangements in place to ensure that they can sustain that tenancy. And, of course, you'll know that my colleague Ken Skates, right at the beginning of his career as a Member of the Senedd, introduced a law that allowed people to stay with foster parents and so on much longer than they had previously been able to so that they can continue to source the sort of support that people who grow up in their birth family often have well into their lives, and, in fact, if my children are anything to go by, well into their 30s. 

Thank you, Minister. Recently, Newport City Council approved a motion formally calling on the Welsh Government to carefully consider calls for a regional referendum on the M4 relief road. A poll conducted by WalesOnline found that double the amount of people supported the road than those who voted against. After restrictions were eased following the end of the first lockdown, during the summer of last year, it was alarming to see how fast traffic levels returned to the M4 motorway around Newport. Minister, what are your thoughts on the suggestion of the need for a local referendum by the council? Does the Minister agree with me that the strength of feeling in Newport council amongst councillors, and in the city, can't be overlooked, and that the next Government needs to seriously relook at the need for the M4 relief road and/or commit, like the Welsh Conservatives, to building the road, which will be beneficial not only for the city but for the whole of Wales?

Thank you, Laura Jones. Again, the M4 relief road is primarily in the portfolio of my colleague Ken Skates, but again, we work across the Government on a number of issues. If there is a call for a local referendum, then we're certainly happy to work with Newport council to see how that might be accomplished. I'm all in favour of local people having a large say in what happens in their region or area.

You'll know that we've put a regional arrangement for a strategic planning process in place via our Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021, and that puts the corporate joint committees in place. The south-east corporate joint committee is actually much more advanced than anywhere else. They are very well advanced in looking at their strategic development plan. That strategic development plan will, of course, be considering arterial routes for traffic as well as everything else, alongside the commission put in place by the First Minister and my colleague Ken Skates in order to look at alternatives to building what would be a very ecologically damaging set of concrete across protected Gwent levels. These things are never straightforward, and there is a range of opinions on all sides. I'm very aware that some people in Newport want to build the M4, but I'm also very aware that a lot of people don't want to build the M4 and wish to protect the natural environment. That's why the commission was put in place. 

Anyway, there is now a mechanism for the strategic plan to come forward for the south-east region, and I'm sure that once that process is under way, there will be ample opportunity for people to make their feelings known around the strategic transport arrangements. The CJC will also be the body that has the power to put the strategic plan in place. That will be the regional transport plan, and, of course, that will have to interact well with the strategic planning arrangements for infrastructure. That, of course, is the reason that we put that into the local government and elections Act, in order to give that regional flavour. Because it's not just the people who live in Newport county, but all the people who live around it, and, indeed, further on in Wales, that are impacted by that, hence the need for the strategic approach to it. 

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Delyth Jewell. 

Diolch, Llywydd. In opening, Minister, I'd actually like to echo what Laura has said. It's been a pleasure to shadow you in this post and to find many areas, I think, of accord. Obviously, we won't have agreed on everything, but I do extend my thanks as well. 

Turning to the questions I have, the additional protections for tenants during COVID—the ban on evictions and bailiffs going into people's homes—are due to end at the end of this month, and the next review point when you could extend those protections further falls tomorrow. There are so many aspects of life that haven't yet opened up, and the threat of homelessness still hangs so heavily over tenants' heads. All of the incremental postponements of eviction have, in fact, I think, prolonged anxiety for many tenants, because they don't have an extended period of being able to feel secure. I know you've said in a letter to the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee that you weren't minded to review this until closer to the end of the month, but I would ask whether you would consider, tomorrow, committing to extending those protections for tenants, so that we don't see mass evictions happening when we're still in the midst of a pandemic, but mainly to put their minds at ease. 

Thank you, Delyth. Again, I reiterate what I said to Laura and to Mark. It's been good to work with you. We've found a lot of things in common as well as things where we can disagree, and where we've disagreed we've been able to discuss that disagreement in a civilised way and with the evidence on both sides. So, I'm very grateful to you. It's been a real pleasure to work alongside you as well throughout this Assembly, and, now, Senedd term, which appears to me to have gone extremely quickly in the last few months as well. I can hardly believe we're here at the end of it. 

In terms of evictions, yes, absolutely, I agree entirely that we cannot have people being evicted, especially into homelessness, potentially, in the middle of a pandemic. You'll be aware that we've already housed over 6,000 people in the course of the pandemic, which shows you the real extent of the difficulty. The pandemic is making the system creak at its edges, and we certainly don't want to add an enormous number of people from the private rented sector to that in circumstances where they would be unlikely to find anywhere to go, and especially, actually, where they're in a circumstance where they could not go to stay with a friend at the moment inside the COVID rules and so on—not that that's ideal by way of housing people. 

Of course, we keep the evictions ban under review in every three-week cycle as always. I'm not in a position yet to say what the First Minister will be announcing on Friday, but, of course, it's one of the things that we consider at each three-week cycle. We continue to do that. We are very aware that the current end is at the end of March, and that is under review. I have constant meetings with my officials about what we can do to make sure that tenants are protected and kept safe during the pandemic, and, also, frankly, what plans we have in place for when the ban is eventually lifted, and what we do with the potential numbers of people who might be presenting as unable to carry on in their present accommodation at that time. So, I can assure you that we are taking it very seriously indeed. I absolutely understand the imperative to do it and it's very much part of the review process. 

Okay. Thank you for that, Minister. I'll await eagerly what the announcement will be on Friday. 

Turning to another area, the pandemic I think has brought home to all of us—not meaning for it to be a pun—how vital it is to feel safe in our homes. Too many people in Wales feel unsafe in the buildings where they live, often because cladding that the developer has refused to remove is causing them tremendous anxiety. These people are in many ways figuratively trapped in their homes, because they can't sell them, but they also don't feel safe and they face these huge costs in service charges, in bills, that they, frankly, shouldn't have to pay.

Plaid Cymru—I know that you'll know this—has, for years, espoused the need for a windfall tax on the profits of large developers to pay for correcting the problems that they caused, and I know from our previous exchanges that you're interested in this idea too. But, at present, it is probably outside the Senedd's powers to bring that in. So, until we have that power, Minister, do you think the next Welsh Government should finance the repair work with a view to getting the money back, perhaps, from a windfall tax or from other means? After all, these tenants surely can't be just abandoned to their plight. 

Indeed, Delyth. You'll know, as we've been working on this for some time, that it's fiendishly complicated. I know that it's terribly tempting for people to think it's easy, and I am often told on social media—[Inaudible.]

I think we may be losing the connection with the Minister. We'll just pause a second to see if it's re-established.

[Inaudible.]—others wouldn't necessarily give you the amount of money that you require to fix the entire building. Often there are complex ownership patterns in the building. There are complex freeholder versus leaseholder issues and so on.

I've been meeting with a series of developers. I met with another one of the big developers only this morning to understand from them what they saw as their responsibility. Many of the builders are now coming forward and saying that they will fix the inherited defects of the building. There is an issue about building owners taking some responsibility rather than the leaseholders themselves. We cannot put a windfall tax on, here in Wales. I have called on the UK Government to do so. I'm happy to do so again on the floor of the Senedd. We are looking ourselves to see whether we could make any kind of levy work in Wales. The difficulty is that not very many people build high-rise buildings in Wales already, and the difficulty is that if you did put a levy on, you'd probably just accomplish stopping them building them rather than actually generating any money from them. So, we need to find a way that actually practically works for people.

I have a set of legal advisers beavering away on a range of options that we've put forward—some that have been suggested to me by you and other Members of the Senedd. Others have been suggested to me by the groups of residents who I've met with. I'm in constant dialogue with the residents as well as with the builders. So, we are trying really hard to find a way through this, and I'll say once again: we are not the repository of all good ideas here. If anybody can find a way through it, then we'd be delighted to hear from them. And I'm very pleased with the conversations that I've been having with the builders, the building industry, the Home Builders Federation and others, about the way forward and what could be done to be able to do this. And we have put some money in the budget to look at the preliminary work for this, and then I'm sure that whatever Government's in power after the election will want to do something to help the leaseholders who are in the most dreadful of plights as we stand.

Okay, thank you for that, Minister. My final question: I'd like to ask you about some of the more far-reaching changes to the planning system that our society surely needs. I do realise that planning does span different portfolios, but evidently there's a link with the welfare of residents, and the quality of housing and the communities that those houses support. Because, at present, large developers have if not all the power, then an awful lot of it and are therefore able to avoid section 106 responsibilities. Not enough residents and people living in communities understand how the planning system works. So, do you agree that the past performance of a developer should be a material consideration in whether they get awarded new jobs? Shouldn't planning laws stipulate that a development can only go ahead when the initial phases of the development have actually been completed—for example, those bits that the developers often see as the nice-to-have, easy-to-get-out-of, like playing parks for children? And do you agree with me that all new developments—all new homes, that is—should have easy access to green and, if possible, blue space as well, so that everyone can have the benefit, and the welfare benefits, that come about as a result of being able to live near natural life?

Yes, I certainly agree with some of those propositions and I agree with the thrust of them certainly. So, there are some real issues with the past performance points. I understand entirely what you're trying to achieve with that, but, of course, there's absolutely nothing to stop people setting up individual single-vehicle companies to build particular buildings and so on. You get a real problem of exactly who it is you think has the past performance problems. These things have been tried in various parts and there are difficulties with them, but I understand the point you're making and it is something we want to be able to explore.

The better way of doing it, of course, is to make the planning system work properly and to encourage people to come forward in the right democratic way and to enable them to do so—so, assisting organisations such as Planning Aid to make sure that local populations are able to engage in the planning process at an early stage and not just when they realise a development they don't like is about to, you know, have the signs go up and the notices on telegraph poles all around, but to actually get them to engage in the planning process. I'm really keen on doing that and there are ways and means of doing that through organisations, such as Planning Aid and others, which do help various communities to come forward with particular things that they'd like to see in their areas. So, I'm very pleased to do that.

There are a whole range of things that we wanted to do and weren't able to do, because of the pandemic, around building regulations, which enforce things like space standards, green infrastructure, parks, outside space and so on, which I'm sure any Government that is in power after the upcoming elections will want to take forward. The vast majority of the work has been done already by officials, but we just couldn't, because of the pandemic, bring it to fruition this side of the elections. So, I'm very keen that whoever is in power afterwards is able to take advantage of that. And that would solve some of the issues that you're talking about—about making sure that the houses are decent, quality houses for life, with outdoor space, or decent balconies and so on if they're flats. So, I'm very keen on doing that.

The last bit of that jigsaw, which is much more complex, is the issue of what you do about extant planning consents that have not yet been developed out, but are now subject to old rules. So, the example I'd like to give you is the one of the building sprinklers. My colleague Ann Jones put that groundbreaking legislation through. It was pilloried at the time; it's been proved in hindsight to have been absolutely right, but we still have new houses being built in Wales that don't have sprinklers in them because people had a planning consent that had been started and they were allowed to build it out. So, I would like very much to have the space and time to look again at the planning legislation to see if we can't do something about making sure that people build to the current building regulations and not the ones in existence at the time that planning consents started. So, absolutely, we'd like to be working on that after the election. There is a large number of people across Wales who are interested in looking to see what can be done in that space. If we're all back after the election, I'm sure we'll be able to put together a quick working group to be able to do that.