Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:38 pm on 14 September 2021.
Llywydd, I thank Vikki Howells for that question. She's right to point to a genuine area of challenge for local authorities, because these are not predictable needs. But when the needs occur, they are often very significant, and, from the point of view of the individual, urgent. I was very glad to see that, in the last financial year, with help through the social housing grant, Rhondda Cynon Taf local authority, in the Member's own constituency, was able to carry out specific adaptations to properties in Cwmbach and Penrhiwceiber exactly in order to make sure that properties are properly available for people with specific disabilities.
It's very important thereafter that local authorities maintain the register of those properties. When their current users no longer need to access them, they need to be made available to others who need similarly adapted accommodation. I know Vikki Howells will have seen, Llywydd, that, back on 12 August, the Welsh Government published our new standards for the future of social housing here in Wales. And part of the purpose of those new standards is to make sure that the size of rooms and buildings that will be provided in the social rented sector will make it easier for local authorities to carry out those adaptations in future, so that housing can be more readily and, indeed, more efficiently, from a financial point of view, translated into accommodation that people can use, in exactly the circumstances that the Member for Cynon Valley has referred to.