Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd, and yes, I will be speaking in my capacity as Chair of the Local Government and Housing Committee today. I thank the Minister for her statement. Our committee will be looking at housing in the round over the course of this Senedd term—the availability of affordable, good quality housing that meets the climate change challenges. Our first work stream is, however, on second homes—a subset, really, of that overall picture—and we recently launched a public consultation as part of this inquiry, which will be open until mid January. We hope to receive a wide range of responses in order to gather evidence, and we hope that will come from a spectrum of different perspectives so that we hear all points of view on these very important matters. 

I do think the Minister's statement today is very timely as we begin our inquiry. One of the main strands of our work will be to examine the recommendations of Dr Simon Brooks in his report, and we will also look, of course, at the Welsh Government's response to those recommendations. Part of that governmental response was to take forward the pilots and, obviously, to evaluate them in due course. I wonder, Minister, if you could say a little bit more about that exercise and what were the criteria used to decide on the pilot area. Obviously, the extent of the issues in that particular part of Wales is very important, but I wonder if you could add to that with any other criteria that were used. And also, if you could say anything about the extent of community interest in becoming pilot areas. It would be good to know what the extent of that interest was. 

It's very topical, of course, this issue, and it's had quite a deal of media attention in recent months and, indeed, over quite a long period of time. And I think now particularly in light of the pandemic and its potential impact in terms of increasing people's ability to work from home, and appreciation of the environment and a desire to live in attractive coastal and rural areas, I wonder if the Minister agrees that that's an added dimension at the moment that needs to be factored into consideration of these issues. 

We haven't yet received enough evidence to draw any conclusions, but we do know this is a very complex issue. As Joel said, we've heard that more research and data are needed in order to fully understand the scale of the issue, and we'll continue to explore that through our work. We're also eager to better understand where the balance lies between the economic benefits of second homes and at what point you reach what I think is often described as a tipping point, where potential economic benefits are outweighed by social harm.   

So, we will continue our inquiry into the new year when we'll be inviting stakeholders with a range of views to present their evidence, and we'll also be inviting you, Minister, to give formal evidence to the inquiry before we consider our conclusions and issue a report. Diolch yn fawr.