Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:59 pm on 15 June 2021.
It's perhaps worth looking a little closer at what you mean by 'significant sums'. I think your Government last November said you wanted, between now and 2050, to decarbonise 1.4 million homes. I think my sums, if they're right, say that's 132 homes every day for the next 29 years. Perhaps you can tell us how many Welsh homes were decarbonised last year, because from where I'm looking, it feels as if we're at a bit of a standstill.
Retrofitting, of course, is an investment; it's an investment in the environment, but it's an actual investment also in making savings through energy efficiency. It could create tens of thousands of jobs. It's exactly the kind of project that could attract investment—real financial investment—through Government bonds, for example, and Plaid Cymru has talked of maybe a multi-billion pound scheme over a period of time, financed in that kind of way.
Now, your Government has had to admit that the £20 million invested in the optimised retrofit programme is, and I quote:
'not…going to come anywhere close to decarbonising Welsh homes.'
Well, you can say that again. So, First Minister, it's more than two years now since the declaration of a climate emergency, we're something like 7 per cent of the way to 2050 already, so when will you put the financial model and the detailed strategy in place to begin retrofitting at pace, because the clock is ticking and the emergency is deepening?