Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:33 pm on 30 November 2021.
Well, Laura Anne Jones, you started really well and then you went rather downhill. So, we have not failed to tackle homelessness. Wales has a very proud record of tackling homelessness, and in the pandemic, we have done considerably better than our neighbours that you support over the border. So, I'm not taking any of that nonsense from you.
Just to be very clear, at this point in time, the local authority that you're talking about in Wales has a duty to house people who are sleeping rough. They all have outreach workers. There may be issues why that person cannot take advantage of that, but the local authority is under a duty to house those people. They're not able to say that they cannot and they are funded accordingly. So, there is no excuse for that.
What we are not doing is helping—. So, I am very grateful to the volunteers who, from the best possible motives, are helping people sleeping rough. But what we've got to do is switch the system away from supporting people on the street to supporting them in housing. So, the local authority is under a duty to house those people, so they should be doing so. If you want to write to me with any specific incidences you're aware of, I'd be more than happy to take it up with the council. But they are supposed to do that already.
The intentionality that you mentioned slightly further on in your contribution is what I'm talking about in terms of the legislative change that we need to see. So, we need to fundamentally reform the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, which has priority need and intentionality included in it. We will need to do that with a White Paper and then some fundamental reform, which, obviously, the Senedd will have to approve, and we will take through in the normal way. So, we need to do quite a radical cultural change, you're quite right. But as we speak right now, the local authority is under a duty to house those people, and it should be doing so.