The next item today is item 4 on the agenda, a statement by the Minister for Climate Change on the Welsh housing quality standard 2, and I call on the Minister for Climate Change, Julie James, to make the statement. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Today, I'm launching the formal consultation for the proposed Welsh housing quality standard 2023. The original WHQS, as it's colloquially known, was introduced in 2002 to boost the quality of social housing in Wales. Together with our social landlord delivery partners, we have invested billions of pounds over two decades to significantly improve and maintain the quality of social homes across Wales through the WHQS, and it has really worked. By the end of 2020, 99 per cent of social housing in Wales met the original WHQS, a standard that is much more demanding than in any of the other home nations. 

WHQS has always been an anti-poverty standard, ensuring high-quality housing to some of our most vulnerable households and communities. Spanning six administrations, WHQS is an example of how Governments can, indeed, take the long view, investing in long-term policies and programmes, with long-term funding models. We've enabled social landlords to confidently invest over the long term in assets and communities, and this has resulted in driving up the standard of social housing in Wales.

Everyone accepts that living in a quality home brings benefits to both the physical and mental well-being of those who live in them. Indeed, the pandemic has fundamentally shifted how people live, how they feel about their homes and what they expect from them. Now is the right time for the standard to be reviewed, acknowledging this shift, as well as the unprecedented cost-of-living crisis facing the people of Wales. And in doing so, we must raise the bar again, going further to ensure social homes meet not just refreshed expectations, but, of course, respond to the climate change emergency by reducing the carbon emissions from social housing.

The proposed standard for WHQS 2023 builds on the excellent achievements of its predecessor. The new standard keeps anti-poverty requirements at its heart, introducing the requirement to provide flooring throughout the home at each new tenancy, improve energy efficiency and minimise exposure to noise, with the aim of putting more money in tenants' pockets and supporting their comfort and well-being. It also introduces water efficiency standards and encourages landlords to consider biodiversity opportunities.

The proposed standard aims to be bold, but ultimately achievable. We aim with our consultation to ensure that the voice of the sector is taken into account in finalising these standards, and getting them just right. I make no apology for proposing what some will see as a bold approach; I'm determined the standards bar should be raised again. In the face of the cost-of-living crisis and climate change emergency, we cannot stand still. We must continue to push progress and set standards to address decarbonisation through a variety of measures in existing social housing. 

The technical elements of the standard have been supported by experts who have looked at what else is happening across the UK and wider afield, and helped to develop a proposed standard that keeps Wales at the front line of decarbonising social housing. The voices of over 900 tenants have been heard to formulate a new standard that reflects their needs, wants and aspirations for their homes. And we have worked very closely with a wide range of stakeholders, listening and taking into account their concerns and challenges during the drafting of the proposed new standard. This collaborative approach has underpinned the development of the WHQS 2023 so far, and will continue to underpin our approach to consulting on and refining the standards moving forward.

The proposed WHQS 2023 standards will be published for consultation from 11 May and will be open for stakeholders to respond for 12 weeks. Our social housing tenants deserve these standards to be the very best we can make them. Meeting our Net Zero Wales targets requires us to make determined progress and I believe these standards will help drive this progress. My firm hope is that these standards will not only be brought to bear for social housing, but that in future other tenures may consider how they too might meet and exceed these expectations, and I encourage views through the consultation on how this standard can work for everyone. Diolch.

Thank you for the statement, and, Minister, can I just say how nice it is to see you back in this Chamber and how you've been in our thoughts in recent weeks?

Thank you, Janet.

Now, I agree with the core principle that houses owned by associations and local authorities have to be in a good, presentable and habitable condition, but I think some might question whether the Welsh housing quality standard has worked to its best ability. The results of the tenants' survey speak volumes: only 53.6 per cent of respondents agreed that their home is in a good condition; only 60.3 per cent agreed that their home met the specific requirements of the household; and 44 per cent had never heard of the Wales housing quality standard. So, I would be grateful if you could outline what measures you will take to ensure that tenants are made aware of these standards, and how they are feeling empowered to seek necessary changes. 

I'm also aware, from some meetings that have been held recently, how sometimes, when tenants are offered the opportunity to have some improvements—it might be new heating or windows, and I know this has come up in our committee, regarding the decarbonisation of properties—that sometimes tenants are a little unwilling themselves to allow contractors to go in. So, I suppose my No.1 question is to ask how you as a Government can perhaps make our tenants more aware of these housing quality standards, and how then we can provide confidence in the tenants to allow these works to be done, because it is going to benefit them.

On the other hand, you would agree with me, I'm sure, Minister, that some tenants are reporting waiting up to 10 years for some repairs to be completed. It's also important to consider whether the WHQS pursues reasonable repairs and replacements. You've referred to flooring, energy efficiency and to minimise exposure to noise. However, evidence from Linc Cymru, ClwydAlyn and Pobl Group has highlighted, for example, that in Wales they have to change a kitchen every 15 years, yet the same kitchens, from the same manufacturers, in England require changing only every 20 years. Bathroom suites are similar, at 25 years in Wales and 30 years in England. Now, the housing associations clearly highlight that Welsh social landlords are being subjected to millions of pounds' worth of costs unnecessarily. So, would you look at that, or respond, to see whether finance can be freed to spend elsewhere in social homes?

Money is a major concern. Social landlords remain committed to delivering low-carbon homes for the good of their tenants, the environment and the planet. However, they have made it clear to the climate change committee that safety matters should take a higher priority than decarbonisation ambitions, if there are limited resources. The Future Generations Commissioner for Wales has published a report that states that the cost to retrofit all social housing to reach an A energy performance certificate rating in Wales will be £5.5 billion. So, this would equate to an average of £24,000 per home. Do you agree with the future generations commissioner's costings, and, if so, will the Welsh Government be delivering this funding that's required? Even Community Housing Cymru has stated that the Wales housing quality standard 2 financing model will need to provide the boards of each social landlord sufficient assurance that the standard is achievable without compromising the other organisation's objectives.

Where works are planned to take place, it is a fact, as I've already mentioned, that social landlords are facing resistance from tenants. According to the social housing decarbonisation fund study, the main drivers of tenant refusal are having rooms unusable during works at 43 per cent; the time work will take, 45 per cent; the noise disruption of the work at 60 per cent, and some just disliking change at 62 per cent. So, whilst I appreciate that the voices of over 900 tenants have been heard, bearing in mind those statistics, how do you, going forward, aim to achieve the goal of ensuring that tenants are no worse off as a result of the decarbonisation work in their homes, and that we can all work together to ensure that we carry out the Wales housing quality standards to a degree where all our tenants can benefit from them? Thank you.

Well, thank you very much, Janet. You raise a few very interesting points and some points of principle. So, just in terms of the points of principle, we clearly are facing a climate challenge. You will have seen the most recent report saying that we're looking at some of the hottest years ever on record. And, so, this is about making sure that people's homes are fit for that. So, this isn't only about heating them in the winter; it's also about cooling them in the summer, it's making them fit for purpose. We know that the Welsh housing quality standard that we've just brought the housing up to is EPC D, and that's a very considerable improvement on what it was before, but it's clearly nowhere near the standard that we expect to be climate change resilient.

So, one of the first things we're doing is looking at the standard over a pragmatic period of time. Obviously, not everyone's going to be done in the first year, so it's going to take another 10 years to get us there. And it will be for housing associations and councils to plan out how they will get there, what their worst housing is in terms of the most difficult to convert, or the easiest to convert, even, for some of them, and then to plan that out over that time period. Also, we're very aware that we've got programmes like the optimised retrofit programme and the innovative housing programme running, and they're testing technologies for us. So, over the course of that 10 years, there will be technologies available that are not available now, or that technology will get considerably cheaper than it is now, and so on. So, it's very important that the standard has an output rather than a—. I'm not going to say you have to have an air-source heat pump, or you have to have whatever; it's the output. The home has to have this much decarbonisation, it has to have this much energy efficiency and so on. And then how we get there will depend on what kind of house it is. And you'll know that we've been testing out the various kinds of things that work on different kinds of housing using the ORP programme, so we're expecting to learn from all of those things going forward.

It's also why we're consulting with the tenants of course, because you're absolutely right: some people don't like change, some people can't manage without the room being available and so on. We're also looking at, for some people, it will be necessary to decant them out for a while while the home is retrofitted, and that was actually the case for the old Welsh housing quality standard too. So, we had people who had to move elsewhere for three or four months while their home was retrofitted. What we do know is that once people move back in, they're very happy with what they find.

And in terms of things like how often do you change your kitchen, how often do you change your bathroom, again that depends on what you're specifying. So, nobody wants to be throwing things away that are still perfectly serviceable—that's got a carbon footprint as well. But, at the same time, we also want people to have the most efficient and the most effective use of both space and equipment. So, this is all about consultation, isn't it? This is all about each individual housing association, each individual council, consulting properly with its tenants, putting a programme of work to them, and then getting that agreed. We're not going to get 100 per cent buy-in for any of these things; some people just hate the change in their house no matter what benefits it brings them, and we have had examples of that in housing associations over the time. But I think all of those things are doable if people understand what the outcome for them is, and if that outcome is a better home that's both safer and more energy efficient, and more up to date and more modern inside the period that they have, then most people will come along that journey. You're never going to make 100 per cent of the people happy 100 per cent of the time. 

But I'm really proud of how we've got to here. So, learning from those lessons from IHP and ORP, learning from really good housing associations like ClwydAlyn and so on, who've done a lot of work here, we'll be able to roll this out in a way that I think suits the vast majority of our tenants.

May I echo Janet's earlier words and say how good it is to see the Minister back, and that she and her family have been in our thoughts during this recent difficult period?

But thank you to the Minister for today's statement. Of course, setting housing quality standards is laudable, and we have seen improvements in standards for many of our homes. But the fact remains that a high percentage of homes in the public sector continue to be of a low standard. The Minister said at the beginning of her statement that 99 per cent reached the original quality standards set, but almost 55,000 of the public housing stock in Wales are in what is called 'compliant subject to acceptable fails'. This is almost a quarter of the public housing stock. Well, acceptable fails means a number of different things. Very often it means that one can’t afford to bring it up to the necessary standard. So, does the Minister believe that this figure is acceptable?

Recent statistics have also shown that we know, of course, that around 15 per cent of the housing stock is in the private rented sector and around the same number, 16 per cent, is social housing. Of the social housing, 93 per cent of those are homes that are clear of dangers, but in the private sector, it’s only 75 per cent—three quarters—that are clear of dangers. We also know that the performance is a lot worse in terms of energy performance and emissions in the private sector. So, what’s the Minister going to do in order to narrow that gap between the private and public sectors, in order to ensure that all houses in Wales meet these necessary standards?

While steps have been taken to ensure that the public housing stock in Wales is energy efficient, as we’ve heard, the truth is that they’re not even reaching the necessary levels now. Retrofitting continues to be a huge challenge, and although I welcome the fact that you have prioritised decarbonisation, the truth is that the costs in tackling retrofit and decarbonisation are huge. You can’t expect the public housing sector to increase rents in order to pay those retrofitting costs, and, in the current climate, where construction costs are increasing so vastly, it’s going to be very difficult for the sector to decide whether they build new homes or retrofit. So, where will the sector get the additional necessary funding in order to ensure that they meet these heating standards?

Then, in looking at the new consultation that you’re bringing forward, we do have to bear in mind that Wales in 2023 is very different to Wales in 2002. And one of the new necessary things in this age is broadband. So, I would ask whether, during your consultation, you will consider asking a question as to how important it is to have access to broadband and ensure that broadband is available in all homes as part of these housing standards.

Also, society is now coming to appreciate that everyone has a right to a home that is fit for purpose, and everyone has their different needs—some, of course, have health problems, some have conditions such as motor neurone disease, others will be visually impaired, others will have mobility problems, and so on and so forth. So, what work are you doing as a Government to identify the needs of people who have these various different needs and to ensure that this is part of the consideration as we move forward to Welsh housing quality standard 2?

Finally, you will also appreciate that quality of life in a house is not only reliant on bricks and mortar; it’s reliant on the services available too. So, in this consultation on Welsh housing quality standard 2, will you also consider the need to look at access to services in terms of public transport and how easy it is for people to live in those communities where the homes and houses are to be built? Thank you.

Diolch yn fawr, Mabon. And thank you very much for your comments at the beginning in particular.

You make a whole series of very good points, and one of the reasons we're going out for the consultation is to just tease out some of these things. Just in terms of the acceptable fails that we have already, I'm very keen to look again at what we consider to be an acceptable fail for the new housing quality standard. Some of them are really obvious. So, we have people who are living in flats, apartments, who don't have access to the outside space that's necessary for some of it. Clearly, we can all understand that that's an acceptable fail in terms of that kind of thing. But I'm not keen at all on it being an affordability acceptable fail. Our view is that, if the home is capable of being brought up to the standard, then it's not about how much it costs to get there, it's about how you get the house to that standard over a period of time, and perhaps through a number of iterations of retrofit, taking into account the point that Janet Finch-Saunders made about making sure the tenant is happy with the ongoing work programme. And one of the things that the consultation is doing is asking both tenants and housing associations, councils, to look at how they plan that approach in, so that—. Not all homes will be brought to standard immediately in the first iteration of the retrofit, for example. And then, as you heard me saying, we're also hoping to learn the lessons of the optimised retrofit and the innovative housing programme on the technology that can be brought to bear in particular types of home in order to get them to particular energy efficiency, et cetera, standards.

We're also very keen on things like access to green space. So, even if you are in an apartment, you should still have access to green space outside. We're looking at encouraging all social landlords—councils and housing associations—to ensure access to green space, even if it's not a private garden, nevertheless good access is part of—we all know, as part of the pandemic—is very much part of your well-being in living in that house.

In terms of other services, absolutely, we will look at that, but I'm not sure that we'd want a house to fail the WHQS because the bus service outside it isn't up to scratch, although obviously in a different part of my portfolio we're very keen on improving public services, such as bus services and so on. But I'm certainly prepared to look at what can be done to encourage social landlords to put pressure on service companies to bring other services to bear. Things like access to local amenities, actually right down to shops and leisure facilities, is one of the things that does make housing more acceptable. But this is much more about the fabric of the home, really, and we know, from the analysis we've done of housing association and council tenants satisfaction surveys and other things, that things like noise and flooring and that kind of stuff are very high up on tenants' wish lists, and so that's why it's included in the standard.

The rent equation that you brought up is a very interesting one as well. Every time we do the rent equation for social landlords in Wales we have this terrible dilemma to make it affordable, but to make sure that the rental stream for those landlords is sufficient, both to retrofit their housing and to build the new housing that we need. And the rental stream, of course, is what drives the ability to borrow from the local housing associations, and so it's a very difficult equation, isn't it, about affordability and not affordability.

But there are some political points here to make, I'm afraid, as well. The freezing of the local housing allowance by the current UK Government has been seriously detrimental, not only to the tenants who are stuck in lowering ability to claim benefit in the private rented sector, but actually to the ability of people to afford housing across Wales. So, these political choices are really problematic. I have written several times to the Minister complaining that the hidden cut of the freezing of the local housing allowance is having a very detrimental effect, not only on individuals, but on the ability to plan for housing in general. So, just to make that point. 

In terms of construction costs, in terms of new build, we've already assisted by putting up the way that we manipulate our social housing grant and the way that we get the affordability envelope to look for new build. We've adjusted that to account for construction costs. We will be looking to do that for retrofit as well, but, again, one of the points to be made here is that you pay VAT on refurbishment, whereas you don't pay it on new build. And so one of the things we really, really hope the UK Government will take on board is what a disincentive having VAT on refurbishment is, and how against the whole climate change agenda it is to incentivise knocking something down and building a new one instead of refurbishing an old building, and what a stimulation for the economy it would be to look again at VAT on refurbishments. So, that's something we've also—. Rebecca Evans and I have written a number of times on the nonsense of making refurbishments subject to VAT. So, these things are complex financial equations at all times and that's not helping.

But overall, what we're doing is we're getting the standard right first, and then looking at the time period and the financing model. So, I think, the standard is the most important thing here, but we do have access to finance. We have access to the old what's called MRA, so the major repairs allowance for local authorities, and what's called dowry, which is the local stock voluntary transfer moneys that were paid when our local authorities externalised their housing stock a decade or more ago now, and that money has been kept in the budgets and is still available for the Welsh housing quality standard. That's how we funded the first iteration as well. So, that money is there, Mabon, and we are looking at innovative financing ways of making that go as far as possible as well.

And then, the last thing I just wanted to say was about broadband access. You make a very good point there. It's not just about the infrastructure, though, for broadband, it's about the affordability of the broadband provision. We have been encouraging both local housing associations and local authorities to look at bulk purchasing arrangements or Wi-Fi arrangements and so on. So, it's not just about the fabric of the house allowing the broadband, it's about the affordability of the available broadband package and what it's used for and so on. So, that's certainly in our sights. We still have a large number of white premises dotted around the rural countryside, so one of the things that we can do is use our social housing to bring pressure to bear on making sure those services are improved in that area. So, I definitely have that in my sights as well, although, again, it's not necessarily about the fabric of the house, is it, it's about the availability of the external infrastructure. So, I very much welcome your contribution, and I'm looking forward to the submission you'll make, I'm sure, in response to the consultation.

I speak as someone who was brought up in a council house. I very warmly welcome this statement. The original Welsh housing quality standard has worked, and has worked very well. It has driven up the quality of social housing in Wales, both council and registered social landlords, or, as I normally call them, housing associations. It goes back to 2002, which is 20 years ago. Are those properties that had new kitchens and bathrooms over 15 years ago now having them replaced or updated?

I believe anti-poverty should be the driving force of all Government policies, and I would like to see more Government discussion of how everything they do is anti-poverty. I think that the reason the party I belong to came into existence was to fight against poverty. Does the Minister accept we're currently creating a two-tier system for rented housing, social housing and privately rented housing? Does the Minister intend bringing in a housing quality standard for privately rented accommodation, some of which is in a much poorer state than council and housing association housing?

Thank you, Mike. I know you share my enthusiasm for social housing. We were brought up not too far away from each other, as it happens, and I've always admired your zeal and enthusiasm for really good social housing. Absolutely, this is an anti-poverty agenda; it's also a decarbonisation agenda. Those things go hand in hand, of course. The more energy efficient you make a house, the less carbon it emits, the less your bill is for energy, and the better the anti-poverty circle that you get out of that. So, I completely agree with that. 

In terms of the PRS, we are implementing the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, which will help with that, but also we have a range of schemes intended to incentivise private sector landlords to allow us to help them bring their house to standard. As you know, for a landlord that gives their house over to us for a minimum of five years, we will help them bring the house to standard, we will guarantee the social rent for that period, we're able to give better security of tenure to the tenant for that period, the landlord gets the house back in better condition, the housing stock improves—it's a complete win-win situation. The better we can get the knowledge of that out into the private rented sector, the more of those landlords we can encourage to come into that scheme, the better the housing stock will get.

What we don't want to have is saying that the private rented sector has to bring their house up to EPC E, as the UK Government has recently done, without any grants or loans or anything else to do it, because we fear that those landlords will simply come out of the PRS and sell the housing. In particular, with the big multigeneration houses we get in inner city constituencies, such as my own and Jenny Rathbone's, for example, we're very afraid that those landlords would be disincentivised by that. So, what we need is incentive schemes to ensure that people stay in the private rented sector, get a decent return on their capital, but actually are rewarded for giving better homes to their tenants.

Part of that is the renting homes Act agenda—we're in the process of implementing that Act—and part of that is the incentivisation we give to private sector landlords to bring those homes up to standard. And of course, by driving the standard of social housing, we make the contrast, don't we? We give people that choice. And by building more social housing, we give people that choice as well. All of that is designed to put pressure on PRS landlords who perhaps might be considering not bringing the house to standard.

I'd like to thank you, all your predecessor Ministers with housing responsibility, and all the other stakeholders involved in bringing WHQS to all our social housing. That doesn't mean to say there isn't more work to be done. I've still got tenants living in no-fines accommodation that is freezing cold in winter. I do want to take you up on the opportunity you've given us in your final paragraph to consider how we're going to get other tenures up to the standards that we currently have in social housing, because living in a band D or worse private rented property is a guarantee of discomfort, unaffordable heating bills, and, for many, having to choose between heating or eating. In the context of the Tory cost-of-living crisis, we really are looking into the abyss. I don't think we can take the long view, and we definitely can't stand still. We need to act urgently now. We have to remember that it was in 2007 that Gordon Brown introduced the zero-carbon standards for all new housing, which were torn up by George Osborne in 2015—one of the most disastrous measures in the context of the climate emergency. We really do need to know when are we going to get much stronger Part L standards for new housing, because retrofitting is much more complicated and expensive than correcting the greed of private housebuilders who want to build substandard homes. So, it seems to me that—

You need to conclude the question, please.

—there are opportunities from the zero-rated VAT on insulation that private landlords ought to be incentivised to seize. I'm not looking for grants; I want loans for private landlords so they do the right thing. Ultimately, I want to see sticks for private landlords who don't do the right thing, and I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about that.

I completely agree, Jenny. In terms of the new builds, of course, we will be bringing part L regulation changes through very shortly. We've already changed what's called the DQL for new-build social to carbon passive or carbon neutral, so again, incentivising the industry to build to that. We're also, of course, allowing social landlords to buy off plan for new build, incentivising our builders to build all their houses to that in the hope that they'll be able to sell more of them off plan to the big registered social landlords and councils. That is happening across Wales.

In terms of the stick, implementing the renting homes Act will have some very big effects on making sure that private-sector landlords have to have a home fit for purpose. But I agree with you about incentivising with loans; we are looking to see what we can do to do that. One of the things we're doing is trying to guarantee, as I said, with the leasing schemes—. First of all, we're trying to make sure that all the landlords know about it. We've been using Rent Smart Wales to put communications out. I think it is quite a big carrot to have that income guaranteed to you with no vacancies or whatever for the whole period of the time you bring it across, and of course to have the home brought up to standard. I do want to encourage everyone to get awareness of that out, so when we do encounter tenants in that housing, I always think it's worth asking them whether their landlord is aware of that scheme. Lots of them aren't, so I've been surprised at people not being aware.

In terms of sticks, we are looking to see what can be done in conjunction with the UK Government, actually, about improving some of this. The UK Government has put some quality standards on the PRS, but unfortunately, it does tend to be that you just have to be at EPC E without any of the incentives. As I said, I'm very keen to avoid some of the unintended consequences of that, particularly in the inner cities where some of the biggest, oldest housing stock is. It would be very hard to replace that quickly, for multigenerational families in particular. Yours and my constituencies are particularly replete with housing of that sort.

But I'm keen to have that conversation. I'm meeting the Residential Landlords Association soon; we'll continue that conversation with them. But in the meantime, setting the gold standard, if you like, for housing in Wales with social housing is very much where we're at with this statement. We were told we couldn't do it the first time, and we've done it, so I'm sure I'm going to be told I can't do it this time, and I'm pretty convinced we will be able to do it again. My predecessor in post was Rebecca Evans, actually, and I know she had very long conversations about the inability of us to do it, and we've done it anyway. So, that's where we are, but I'm happy to have individual conversations with you, too, Jenny, about constituency issues.

Finally, Joyce Watson.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I welcome the statement. Recently, we discussed at the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee the skills that will be necessary. Mark Bodger from the Construction Industry Training Board Wales said that they would be more than prepared to step in to that space. And of course, we've got the upcoming Net Zero Wales skills plan, and I understand that'll be published sometime this autumn. One of the criteria in that plan is to prevent existing labour-market inequalities being carried through into the new net-zero and digital economies. So, I hope that you will agree with me, Minister, that there is a huge opportunity here, and also, I believe, an obligation, to use the new Welsh housing quality standard to encourage and to support more females and members from ethnic minorities to take up careers in construction. If we look at sites, we're talking about only 2 or 3 per cent being female, and only upwards of 14 per cent if we look at the technical side roles. So, it's a huge untapped market when there are currently shortages in that labour market. Will you, Minister, with your colleagues, look at how to use the Welsh housing quality standard to turn around those numbers into a positive? 

Thank you very much, Joyce. I know you've been campaigning on this issue for as long as I've known you, so it's nice to see you still coming to the bat, or whatever the sporting analogy is for that. Yes, absolutely; one of the things we were able to do with the first Welsh housing quality standard was overtrain the number of apprentices necessary to make them available into the private sector for that kind of retrofit. We'll be able to do that with this one as well, and build on what we've been doing for both the optimised retrofit programme and the innovative housing programme, which is understand what the tech looks like to retrofit, and then make sure that the dialogue with CITB and others, our FE colleges and so on, is absolutely front and centre of that programme, so that they are changing their apprenticeship training programmes as we are changing the technology. There's no point in churning out gas refitting engineers if what we're saying is, 'You don't want a gas boiler'. So, obviously, there's a retraining issue for existing tradespeople, and there's new entrants into the market.

The last thing to say is that a lot of this retrofit we hope will be done with renewables—Welsh timber for insulation panels and so on. Much of that is done in our new modern methods of construction factories. I've been really struck, when going around those factories, at a much more diverse workforce, because it's not at height, it's not out in all weathers, it's in a factory setting. So, you see many more people with disabilities and many more females in those settings than you do on a typical construction site out in all weathers. I'm hoping that that will be the wedge, if you like, to get those people back into the profession.

The last thing I would say is that, of course, we're very much pushing the point, which I know you have pushed on numerous occasions, that this isn't only about the tradespeople. The opportunities for work in the construction sector for this are all the way through—all the way through the assessors, the quantity surveyors, the architects, the project managers and so on. We'd like to see a lot more diversity in all of those tiers in the construction industry, as well as in crafts. Diolch.

Thank you, Minister. On behalf of all Members, I'm sure we'd like to welcome you back to the Chamber and express our thoughts for your difficulties in recent weeks.

Thank you.