5. Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Second Homes and Affordability

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:15 pm on 23 November 2021.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 4:15, 23 November 2021

I think I detected four questions in that rather long speech, so I'll—[Interruption.] I think there were four, I think I'm right in saying, which considering the length of the speech is quite something. But, there we are.

The first one was about land for house building. Janet Finch-Saunders, because she's part of the cross-party working group, will know perfectly well that we have been working with local authorities right across Wales on their local development plans to identify housing land that is identified in the LDP to understand why it isn't brought forward for housing and to make sure that we've removed all the barriers for that. She would do well to discuss with Propertymark and others how much land banking there is in the private sector across Wales and why the release of housing is so slow, and whether that has any effect on the current house prices, because I think she'd be quite surprised by some of the answers.

The idea that the solution to house building is to remove pollution controls on floodplains is quite extraordinary. I cannot understand at all how the Conservatives can, on the one hand, say that they agree that there's a climate emergency and on the other hand say that we should build on floodplains with phosphate problems. So, I'm not going to even dignify that with an answer, because it's quite obvious what the answer is. Of course we can't build on floodplains where there's a danger of flooding or pollution. So, we have to find other land or we have to find flood defence capability to make sure that that land is available. And I've got absolutely no problem with NRW's guidance on the subject.

The empty homes figures are interesting. They include houses that are, of course, up for sale. She knows that as well from the cross-party group. We have been working very hard to make sure that we have proper figures on empty homes, and we have a number of initiatives in that regard, as she will also know. So, for a very long time now, we have been offering grant aid to people to bring the empty homes back into beneficial use, either for their own use, if they live in them for five years, or to give them to us as social rented homes, where that's suitable.

On VAT, again, Janet Finch-Saunders does not seem to understand that she's a member of a Conservative Party that has not removed VAT on refurbishing homes, or renovation or reuse. Perhaps she would like to address that to her own Government, who have absolutely refused to do so despite their own declaration of a climate emergency.

And the last thing I would say is that, if she honestly thinks there isn't a problem with second homes, then I suggest she gets out more, because in most parts of Wales there most certainly is.