3. Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: The Homelessness Action Plan

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:04 pm on 30 November 2021.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 3:04, 30 November 2021

Well, as usual, Janet Finch-Saunders has read out a series of ill-thought-out statistics, many of which I've actually set out in my own statement, and made—well, I don't know quite what she was doing. She's calling for me to take action immediately—I am today launching the action plan, so I think that's about as immediate a response as you can make to a call for action. So, this is the launch of the action plan. Perhaps, Janet, if you listened to what I was saying rather than prejudging what you were going to say, you would know that.

You also said something about the freezing of the housing support grant. I think you must be confused between different grants there. We've done no such thing. We also haven't been able to give multi-annual settlements, which I think is what you were calling for, simply because, up until the current comprehensive spending review, we've only had annual budgets of our own. Now that we've got a multi-annual statement, no doubt you will see in the draft budget commitments to multi-annual funding coming forward, although I'm not going to be drawn on what the draft budget will say—Members will have to wait for my colleague, the Minister for Finance and Local Government, to make those announcements.

What we are announcing today is a radical shift in the way that we approach homelessness in Wales. Let there be no mistake: the record of the Welsh Government and the homelessness services right across Wales, including all the public sector involvement, is absolutely outstanding. What we've managed to do during the pandemic is extraordinary, and puts to shame the goings on of the Conservative Government across our border, where you have enormous numbers of people sleeping rough because they stopped the all-in policy last summer, quite shamefully. So, we have managed to do that. Yes, there are large numbers of people in temporary accommodation, because the alternative to that would be rough-sleeping, as you see in England all the time. So, you'd do well to look to your own Conservative Government there for some compassion.

You also spoke about the root causes for homelessness, one of which is poverty. I need not remind you again about the £20 removal from universal credit, about the freezing of the local housing allowance, about the scandalous multiplier for people who are working and on universal credit. So, Janet, I am taking absolutely no lessons from you about neither compassion nor ending homelessness, because your Government across the border, which you support and never criticise, has done no such thing. Here in Wales we have done something radical. We have done it in conjunction with our homelessness action group, which includes experts right across the sector. We have been praised by a diverse group of people, including Lord Deben, who's the chair of the Climate Change Committee, on our action on homelessness and poverty, and you would do well to take some lessons from that, and not come up with—I don't know quite what you were suggesting there at the end. I'm always glad to meet you outside the Chamber, Janet, but honestly, you would do well to have a look at what the action plan actually says before we have that meeting.