3. Will the Minister provide an update on the Arbed 2 scheme in Arfon? OQ57712

Diolch, Siân. Seven hundred and forty-two households in Arfon benefited from home energy efficiency improvements under the Arbed 2 scheme, estimated to have saved them on average around £300 on their domestic energy bills annually.

Thank you very much, but you will be aware of the problems that have arisen with the scheme, and I do thank you for your support on this to date. I am currently helping—

I will have to interrupt you there, Siân Gwenllian. We're having some difficulty with the interpretation at the moment—

It's intermittent. I can hear it sometimes, and not—

Okay, we'll take a technical break in order to sort the—. No, that's absolutely fine. So, we're going to take a short technical break now.

Plenary was suspended at 13:58.

The Senedd reconvened at 13:59, with the Llywydd in the Chair.

Okay, we can restart, and I'll ask Siân Gwenllian to ask her supplementary question to the Minister. Siân Gwenllian.

Thank you very much for your support with this issue, because you will be aware that there have been a number of problems arising in my constituency. I am continuing to assist a number of constituents with requests for compensation from the contractors or the guarantee firms, but none of these cases has successfully reached conclusion as of yet, and there are at least five cases that I'm aware of that face a situation where the construction company and the guarantee firm has gone bust, and therefore there is no compensation for them. Although it's a different scheme that has caused problems in the Maesteg area, I do think that the Welsh Government is going to be assisting constituents in a very similar situation to those in my constituency in Arfon in that particular area. That's a different programme, yes, but the principle is the same, namely that support should be provided where the construction companies and the guarantee firms have gone bust. These were Government programmes; Arbed 2 was a Welsh Government programme, and people participated in the schemes at the recommendation of the Government. So, if people in the Maesteg area are to be given compensation, isn't it fair to expect people in my constituency to be treated equally and that they too should be provided with funding in order to restore their homes?

Diolch, Siân. I have some sympathy with what you're saying, obviously. What we've been doing, as you know, is working with Fortem Energy Services, the scheme manager for Arbed 2, to review the position of all residents who benefited from the external wall insulation and ensure that they're aware of the process for redress where issues have arisen. Because what we're trying to do is make sure that people do take the routes for redress where they're still available to them. So, we make sure that where the company is still there, if they're at fault in the installation, they pick up the price for that, and similarly with the guarantor.

But, you're quite right; in recognition of the plight of householders elsewhere, for other UK schemes where both the construction company and the guarantor are no longer available because they've gone out of business or for a variety of other complicated reasons, we have agreed to work with the councils there to fund remedial works and some compensations—mostly remedial works, though—for those, as well as in Caerphilly for works at Bryn Carno. I'm more than happy to explore with you whether that would be something we could ask the local council with you to see whether they would be happy to do that. But I can emphasise that we do want people to pursue all of the remedies available to them through the normal routes first, and I know you've been working on that. So, if you want to send me details of that, I'm more than happy to have a conversation with the council and yourself about whether there's anything further we can do.

Thank you to the Member for Arfon for raising this really important question, because like her, residents have been in touch sharing their disaster stories, really, of the scheme in some of their properties. Minister, you highlighted some of the money that has been made available to Bridgend council, for example, and I'd hope that Gwynedd Council would want to work with you and others to support those residents. The question I have is about future schemes. You talked right at the start, I think, about lessons learnt for future schemes. I wonder if you think there's a greater role for councils to play in identifying these properties and supporting home owners for similar schemes in the future.

I absolutely do think that. One of the issues we've had is where we have had small construction companies that have gone out of business as a result or the guarantor scheme has gone down. So, we'll certainly be looking to explore guarantor schemes where the council acts as the ultimate guarantor, but we want to be very careful that we're not transferring a liability and a risk that properly sits with the private sector into the public sector for no reason, and letting people off the hook. I can't emphasise enough that we want people to pursue the private routes that they have all the way to the end, and we have a number of advice services in place to help people do that. I do think that where people have exhausted that avenue there must be some further avenue for them to get remedial works. I can't emphasise enough, though, that what we're talking about are remedial works, and not compensation, because those are two very different things. So, this is to put your house into the position it ought to have been in if the works were correctly done in the first place, and no doubt there will be some element there about bills and all the rest of it. We're very keen that people are put into that position, because the whole point of the scheme was to put people in a position where their house was well insulated and their fuel bills were reduced, and what we don't want is a house continuing to emit carbon and have high energy costs despite having benefited from one of these schemes. We are absolutely looking exactly at that in designing both the Arbed 2 scheme and a number of other schemes we're looking at.

Question 4, Natasha Asghar. 

Thank you very much. I do apologise, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much. Deputy Minister, if you're serious about combating climate change and tackling the frequent delays on our railways—

You need to read the question on the order paper first.

Sorry. My apologies. 

That's okay.