Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:44 pm on 8 December 2021.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 1:44, 8 December 2021

So, again, Janet, I almost admire your ability to put two facts together and make three completely different ones with no relation to the original two. So, we have an ambitious social home building programme of 20,000 low-carbon social homes in the next Senedd term. This is now possible because, after 40 years of preventing councils from building houses, the Tory Government eventually saw sense and took off the caps from the housing revenue accounts. So, I applaud you for having seen sense after only 40 years of ploughing the same furrow.

The next bit of sense you need to see is that the social homes programme and the zero-carbon homes programme is the thing that stimulates the housing market, and that we need to build the right houses of the right standard in the right place, and not just put up any old nonsense all across the countryside, as is proposed across the border. I absolutely applaud all of the agencies working here, including our SME builders, who have been working very hard with us to bring forward that programme. My colleague the Deputy Minister has launched a pipeline for construction across Wales, which has allowed them to fill in the cash flow problems that they have, and we have a very good relationship with them.

On the homelessness point, we provide £1.8 million a month to councils in Wales to combat homelessness brought on by the COVID pandemic. I would that her Government across the border would do anything of the sort and solve the appalling scandal of rough-sleeping that you get under a Conservative Government.