Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:59 pm on 11 January 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:59, 11 January 2022

I understand the points that Adam Price makes, Llywydd. He will know that housing associations rely on rental income to finance their development programmes, so if they are unable to obtain through rental income the amounts that they were anticipating, it will mean that they can build fewer houses for social rent in future. That's what the money gets used for. The case he makes for not increasing rent levels above the rate of inflation is a powerful one, but it's not a decision without its costs in other opportunities that really matter to those people who are waiting for decent social housing in Wales. The same will be true in relation to public transport, that, if you don't raise the money via the fare box, then you end up, as we have in Wales, paying well, well over £100 million into the rail service just to keep its head above water, and that would mean more money would have to be found from those sources, and that means that money isn't available to do other things. So, it is not that I’m disputing the case he makes—he makes it, as I said, persuasively—it is just to point out that these are not cost-free courses of action. They involve opportunity costs and our inability to do other things that themselves could directly help exactly the sort of families that the leader of Plaid Cymru is focusing on today.