House Building

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:09 pm on 18 January 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:09, 18 January 2022

I understand the urgency of the issue. It's why the Welsh Government will pay for the training of local authorities on the habitats regulation assessment process, including a specific component on phosphorous matters. But, the urgency is on two fronts: there is an urgency about the need for social housing, and we're very focused on that as a Government, because 20,000 low-carbon social homes is ambitious, and we want to be able to get on with it. But the other urgency is in dealing with the phosphate problem, which is absolutely real, and building houses without tackling the phosphate problem is not an answer for the long term.

The Member, surely more than most Members in the Senedd, will be aware of the very significant problems in the River Wye in his own constituency, problems highlighted last week in the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee's report—a Conservative-chaired committee, a committee with a Conservative majority on it. Its case study of the phosphate impact on the River Wye is absolutely compelling. The phosphate impact on the River Wye is primarily caused by agricultural pollution, but by no means exclusively. It is also caused by human waste, by road run-off, by industrial activity. Building houses in a way that adds to the problems, rather than helping with the urgent need to mitigate them, is not a solution that this Government will be able to support. So, I'm agreeing with the Member about the urgency. The urgency is on the housing side, but it is on the environmental side as well, and you can't solve one at the expense of the other.