1. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the impact of local authorities' plans for housing developments in Wales? OQ56606

The scale and location of new housing is a matter for local planning authorities to determine as part of their local development plan, reflecting the issues they have identified in line with the requirements of national planning policy and 'Future Wales'.

Diolch. Can I thank the Minister for her answer and congratulate her on her appointment? Because of the movement of housing and planning into the climate change portfolio, I therefore assume that this will see greater protection for green spaces and our natural environment when it comes to planning policy. But, as councils work through their local development plans across Wales, I note that many proposals—. There are many proposals for some significant builds on green spaces, some of which are well used and treasured in our communities. But I also note the Welsh Government have new housing targets you hope to meet as well. So, therefore, can I ask about the Welsh Government's priorities and the threshold for intervention in these areas? So, where these two aims conflict, will you prioritise house-building projects to the detriment of our green spaces or use the powers at your disposal to prevent such projects and protect our natural environment?

So, I'm very committed to a plan-led approach to development across Wales. Maintaining an up-to-date LDP is essential to deliver certainty in the decision making and the delivery of homes, jobs and infrastructure for local communities. An adopted plan well-consulted on means that local planning authorities and communities can positively steer and influence the future, and that's exactly the point of the plan, to answer the question that Tom Giffard asked me. And can I also welcome him to the Senedd? I haven't actually spoken to you directly yet, Tom, but congratulations on your election too.

Bridgend County Borough Council, for example, has decided to maintain an up-to-date LDP for its area, and they commenced a revision of the adopted LDP in June 2018. We are encouraging councils across Wales to ensure that their LDP is up to date in order for them to be able to take full account of the new 'Planning Policy Wales' and 'Future Wales: the national plan 2040', which this Senedd passed in the last Senedd, just towards the beginning of this year. Those will give councils the right tools to be able to construct their local development plan in such a way that they protect the spaces that their local communities wish to protect and also bring forward the right kinds of land with the right kinds of development to make sure that we have sustainable housing and, indeed, other infrastructure projects in the future. The LDP process is, of course, transparent and involves an enormous degree of public engagement with local communities, developers and other key stakeholders, including our community councils, to ensure that all the aspirations  and concerns are considered and taken into account when the plan is presented.

Congratulations on your appointment, Minister, and congratulations to the Deputy Minister, too, on his appointment.

One of the things that local authorities had to include as a core consideration in developing their local development plans was population growth forecasts provided by Government. Each of the LDPs was based on that data, reflecting those forecasts. It's since become apparent that these forecasts were entirely inaccurate; in some cases, populations have fallen rather than increased. This means that the LDPs are deficient because they are based on incorrect data. However, the LDPs, although based on the wrong information, continue to be statutory documents and are in force. Isn't it time to accept that these LDPs are incorrect and to restart the process from the beginning? Thank you.

Thank you for your congratulations, and welcome, also, to you to the Senedd and to your new role. So, we're encouraging—. As I just said in answer to the first question, we're encouraging local authorities across Wales to do a review of their LDP, depending on the age and extent of it. Many of them have already started that process. We also now have a process in place that allows them to come together in corporate joint committees to put together a strategic development plan for the region. We've already put in place 'Future Wales', so we will have a plan-led system in its entirety, which gels together once those elements are in place. 

Local authorities are required to understand housing availability in the area through what's called a local market housing assessment, and forgive me if you already know this, but that's what they're supposed to do. They form a key part of the local development plan itself. We're currently working with a series of local authority experts to develop and improve the local housing management assessments, including publication of a new tool to support local authorities to produce the assessments. We're going to give guidance, training and ongoing support to the local authorities in order to do that. Local authorities, of course, are in the best position to have a good understanding of their local housing market, and to have a robust LHMA in place to inform the decisions. So, I suppose I'm sort of agreeing with you. We encourage local authorities to ensure their LDP is up to date. We are currently working with them on a new local management housing assessment tool. We expect the local authorities to redo their land-based housing assessments in the light of that new tool, and then, when the strategic development plans are put in place regionally, we expect those plans to reflect that on the ground. So, we will be working very closely with local authorities in order to do that.

There is a slight misunderstanding about the targets in the previous predictions: they were never targets; they were always predictions. That's why we're working on the tool, and I look forward to a good relationship with local authorities across Wales in coming together on an agenda we all agree on, which is to make sure we have the right housing in the right place for the right communities.

In my constituency of Bridgend, I am delighted that we have seen first hand a local authority and Welsh Government working together to protect housing developments and businesses in Porthcawl from the impact of climate change. As part of the coastal risk management programme, Welsh Government and Bridgend County Borough Council have jointly invested £6.4 million on sea defences that will immediately protect more than 500 homes and over 170 business from the risk of flooding. Looking to the future, can the Minister tell us how Welsh Government will continue to work with the local authority to ensure any future housing developments and regeneration in Porthcawl continue to be sustainable and live up to our low-carbon housing goals?

Thank you very much for that question, Sarah. It's lovely to actually see you in person here in the Senedd. Yes, Bridgend council have been, as I said, an early adopter of reviewing the LDP process, and sustainable development is very much at the heart of that development plan process. All the development plans must comply with the requirements of the Environment (Wales) Act 2016, and they must contribute to achieving the economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being goals required by the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

So 'Planning Policy Wales' sets out issues to do with climate change. It sets out the principles of sustainable development, air quality, maximising renewable energy generation and the scale and location of new homes, and then LDPs are tested against those policies through a public examination process. So, as I just said in answer to another question, the LHMAs play some part in that as well.

Simultaneously with that, we're also bring forward a review of our building regulations. The new building regulations—the response to our energy efficiency plan was published in March last year—set out a decision to introduce a 37 per cent reduction in carbon emissions for new dwellings across all sectors, not just social housing, compared with the current standards. The new standards will be implemented from 2022, so next year, and will save, we think, homeowners averagely around £180 a year on energy bills. So, they work towards fuel poverty as well as preserving the planet. All new homes will also need to be futureproofed with low-temperature radiators and improved fabric standards to make it easier to retrofit upcoming low-carbon heating systems as they become more available and more widely implementable. The 37 per cent reduction, though, is a stepping stone towards the next change in energy efficiency in building regulations in 2025, matching our carbon targets, where new homes will need to produce a minimum of 75 per cent fewer carbon dioxide emissions than the ones built to the current requirements.

So, you can see that we have an incremental progression to both building the right homes in the right place, so the LDP process reflects that, and also to build them to the standards that future generations deserve and expect, and I'm delighted to say that Bridgend council has been an early adopter of both of those processes.

Question 2—Altaf Hussain.