Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:37 pm on 8 December 2021.
Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Good afternoon, Minister. Now, in a recent virtual round-table I held with Propertymark, it was predicted that there's going to be a huge increase in people looking for rental properties. And I would like to refer Members and members of the public to my own register of interests. This is causing immense pressure for front-line staff in the sales and letting sector, because there are very few properties to rent or buy. Holmans recommend that up to 12,000 homes a year need to be built in Wales by 2031, yet the figures for dwellings completed in 2018-19 was 30.6 per cent less than at the start of devolution. Now, this is a downward decline. Yet, in your letter to the leaders and chief executives, to local authorities, on 17 November, you stated,
'It appears that we are already building the number of market homes we need'.
So, how can this be the case, when only 5,138 new homes were started in 2019? And with this in mind, Minister, do you accept that the appropriate way to respond to the property crisis in Wales would be through empowering existing businesses to build new market homes, rather than wasting time and resources on creating your own national construction company?