Thank you for the question, which I'm sure comes from a real, shared desire, as I know everyone in Wales has, to make sure that we tackle the scourge of homelessness, especially with preventative measures. I'm extremely proud of the measures that everyone in the sector has taken across Wales during the pandemic, and we easily have the best record in the UK nations of making sure that people have not been homeless on our streets through the pandemic. Everyone in the sector has absolutely worked their socks off, coming together across Wales from both the statutory and voluntary sectors to make sure that that can happen.

We are still funding local authorities to the tune of just under £2 million a month, in addition to the normal funding that we give them, in order to ensure that people presenting as homeless right now are still treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve, and are housed in temporary accommodation. I absolutely accept that that temporary accommodation is a range of different services—of course it is, because we have an unprecedented situation in front of us.

We are currently seeing around 1,000 presentations of homelessness to local authority services each month, and we are currently seeing an average of around 400 of those people being moved into permanent accommodation. Members who were here in the last Senedd will know, because the Senedd agreed with us in funding local authorities to step up the pace of house building during the pandemic—. And you'll also remember, I'm sure, that we kept the construction industry open and running through all of that in order to do that. So, actually, 400 permanently housed people a month is an extraordinary effort by local authorities and registered social landlords and other house builders to get the housing built that we want. 

I'm absolutely determined we will not have a going back to rationing in the housing sector and that we will continue to ensure that people who require homelessness services are treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve. We are currently working at pace to get our Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 implemented, and that will address a number of the issues that Mabon has raised in his question. We are working at pace to do that. There are real complications, which the Deputy Presiding Officer will not thank me for going into in the amount of time I have in a topical question, but I'm more than happy to discuss it in a cross-party way, as we have on a number of other occasions. And that will make a huge difference. Of course, today, as you rightly pointed out, we've announced that we have the grants system going into effect. You are right to say that the loans were not as effective as we'd have liked, for a range of reasons, and so what we're doing is we're announcing a grant now. There will be eligibility criteria for that. Our local authority partners, who've worked with us so hard during the pandemic to deliver services, will be delivering that on behalf of the Welsh Government, through the hardship fund. And I'm delighted to say that we've had agreement from the Welsh Local Government Association in the Government in order for that to be facilitated as soon as possible.

We are very worried about the housing crisis in Wales. Very recently, Plaid, quite rightly, brought a debate on the housing crisis, in Siân Gwenllian's name, to the Senedd—a motion that we did not amend, because we entirely agree. The true nature of the crisis is the real problem that we have with the pipeline, if you like, to homelessness. And so my colleague Jane Hutt has facilitated with us a series of advice and funding to advice agencies to assist with relationship breakdown issues and individual counselling and guidance, including debt guidance, mental health support and so on, in order to prevent that happening. And I'm working very closely with my colleague Lynne Neagle as well in making sure that substance abuse and mental health support is available in the sector.

I want to finish just by thanking the sector from the bottom of my heart, actually, for the work that they have continued to do throughout the pandemic and for the work they are still doing now to make sure that, in Wales, we have no real return to the streets and that those people who are still rough-sleeping, in tiny numbers in Wales, have outreach workers assigned to them, and we're working hard to get them into services.