3. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Climate Change: Climate Change

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:29 pm on 16 June 2021.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 2:29, 16 June 2021

Thank you very much. Could I echo what I said about Huw Irranca-Davies about Jenny Rathbone as well, who's been a passionate advocate of this agenda? I very seriously appreciate her efforts and look forward to continuing her challenge.

She raised a series of questions about housing. As Julie James explained earlier, the carving up of this mammoth portfolio is a daily challenge. One of the things we have agreed is I will lead on particular areas; I will lead on transport, regeneration, energy and digital, and work broadly across the other areas—hence the tree planting, for example—and Julie will lead on the rest. So, housing remains with Julie, but I will nip and tuck as directed by my colleague.

But I would say, on the energy standards, I think one of the things I don't think has been said enough is the enormous progress that we have made through the Welsh housing quality standards over the last 18 years. And this is an example of an issue that we were told could not be done. We were told it was just too difficult to get 225,000 homes up to the energy efficiency standards of EPCD, and we have done it. Through £1.8 billion of investment, this has been an enormous achievement by the Welsh Labour Government over that time. And the new iteration—Welsh housing quality standards 2.0, niftily named—is starting in 2022. So, to directly answer the question of why we're waiting until the end of this year, that's because the new standards come into force from that time, which will accelerate social housing's journey towards net carbon zero. So, I think we genuinely should be proud of what we've achieved over the last 18 years with Welsh quality housing standards, and we should expect more of it in the next period, and I think we have reason to be optimistic about that.

Similarly, on part L, I understand that is coming in this year. And this is one of the challenges of this agenda. We know the science is urgent, there are a great deal of things that we'd like to do immediately. The process of getting them through the Government legislative, regulatory machine, working with partners, making sure it's designed properly, so that it works rather than goes off half-cocked, is slow and complex. And I said in my statement earlier, there are tensions here that we're going to have to manage through together, and this is one of the tensions. I can promise you that Julie James and I are as impatient as anybody else in trying to do this as quickly as we possibly can, but it's not as simple as we would like it to be.

Finally, on the example of the ground source heat pumps, I think that's a really excellent example of the new opportunities that this agenda brings. There are jobs to be created from installing ground source heat pumps. Now, currently, we do not have a trained workforce who can do this. So, that is something we're working very closely with Vaughan Gething on, to make sure that we create opportunities for people to upskill, to be able to take advantage of the huge economic opportunities that come from the necessary changes we need to make to respond to the climate crisis.