I'd like to thank Osian Jones and Cymdeithas yr Iaith for arranging this petition and everyone who signed the petition. Ensuring appropriate housing in the right places for local people is crucially important. In Gwynedd at the moment there are around 160 individuals, couples and families too, who have been placed in temporary accommodation, which is inappropriate, because they don’t have a proper home. Over 2,000 Gwynedd residents have registered an application for social housing. The average waiting time before social housing is provided is consistently over 400 days. Much of my casework relates to young people living in inappropriate and damp homes and flats, in homes where there are too many people, young families having to share their parents' home, and some, of course, living on the street.

The other side of the coin is luxurious homes that are empty for large parts of the year. The local housing stock is shrinking as property is purchased as second homes or for holiday accommodation. In Gwynedd now, there are 7,000 second homes or holiday accommodation in the county—that's 11 per cent of all stock. The average house price in Gwynedd is £155,000. With the average income being £26,000, then the income affordability comparison is 5.9:1. Now, this means, on average, that 60 per cent of local people are priced out of the housing market.

Plaid Cymru has a set of meaningful steps that would start to tackle the housing crisis. A number of organisations, including Cymdeithas yr Iaith, make reference to appropriate steps that could be put in place. Simon Brooks has also talked about the kinds of policies that we need to see implemented. There is consensus that reform to policy and finance legislation is required, and reform to planning legislation too. But what's becoming increasingly obvious is that only one party intends to take action on these policies. We hear only empty rhetoric from Labour Ministers. The problem is complex, they say. Well, the fact that something is complex isn't an adequate excuse for not taking action for our communities.

The ambitious housing plan of Gwynedd Council shows what's possible under Plaid Cymru leadership, as the council generates new housing stock for people living in the county, with the new second-home premium contributing to paying for this plan. Cymdeithas yr Iaith say this: 'The open market doesn't work for the benefit of Welsh communities, and this is what's at the heart of this crisis. The only way we can resolve the problem meaningfully will be through legislating to transform housing policy so that it prioritises homes, not capital.' Those are the words of Cymdeithas yr Iaith, and I agree.