Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 2 November 2021.
Well, Llywydd, I thank Joyce Watson for that, and for the welcome that she offered to the £150 million-worth of additional investment, which my colleague Lee Waters has been able to announce today, to improve the energy efficiency of existing social homes in Wales. But Joyce Watson is right that we have, as well, to persuade both private rented properties and home owners to take the actions, which each one of us needs to take in our own lives, if we are to reach the goal of a net-zero Wales by 2050. Some of those decisions will be difficult and challenging decisions, but, back in September, we set out the new standards that will be required from any private house building that has any element of Welsh Government grant associated with it. At the same time, we took action to make sure that new private housing, as well as public housing, cannot be built in future in Wales on land that is liable to flooding. And I know that these are challenging things that we are asking of the sector, but unless we are prepared to take those challenging decisions now, we will not be on the path to the future that we need to be, and that is what the plan of last week is designed to do. It's designed to make sure that, here in Wales, we are able to meet that targets that we have set for ourselves, to make the contributions in the whole range of areas in our own lives. Housing is certainly one of them. Today's announcement is part of that. The challenges we set down for private home ownership have to be part of that same picture.