1. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to support people that have been affected by cladding issues? OQ58217

I’m committed to looking beyond cladding, taking a holistic approach to building safety. This includes changing regulations that govern building control, legislation and addressing existing building safety issues through the Welsh building safety fund. Aluminium composite material cladding removal from the majority of high-rise buildings is completed, with plans in place for all the rest.

Thank you. Llywydd, I'd just like to declare an interest on this issue.

My question to you, Minister, is that I have constituents in buildings that are waiting for their properties to be made safe, as you've just outlined. At the moment, they're waiting for that process, and, in that time, they're not able to sell their properties, upsize—there are a whole host of issues obviously affected by that, and it's affecting the housing market. What are you doing and what active steps are you taking to ensure that that process is speeded up or resolved as soon as possible so that they are able to get those fire certificates so that they can sell their properties? Thank you.

So, I have got a statement just on this next week actually to go into it in more detail, but just to say that we're very committed to making sure that all of the defects in the buildings, not just the ACM cladding, are remedied. So, the ACM cladding, we've sorted that out. The private sector buildings have all got plans in place that are under construction and approved to do that particular bit of it.

In the meantime, we’ve been doing the surveys. We’ve completed all of the desktop exercise surveys and begun the intrusive surveys. Intrusive surveys have to be done, obviously, in conjunction with the people living in the buildings because they are intrusive and therefore we’ve got to be sure that people are happy and they can cope with it in their everyday lives. And as soon as the intrusive surveys are complete on the buildings, then we’ll be able to commission the work to put the buildings right. I will go into a lot more detail next week in my statement rather than pre-announce things today.

Good afternoon, Minister. Last week, I hosted a vigil to mark five years since 72 people lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower fire, and many more people lost their homes as well. I was grateful to all the Members of the Senedd and campaigners who joined us. I wonder if I could ask about an issue concerning the relationship between the Welsh Government and your colleagues in Westminster. It seems to me that there is a total breakdown in inter-governmental working that has led to Welsh homeowners missing out on key developments in the UK Building Safety Act 2022. And I wonder if you could just outline what these issues are so that Welsh homeowners can have the same access to the same recourse as those in England and that, crucially, developers are required and offer the finance to start urgent and immediate work to put right their failures. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Yes, as I say, I will go into a lot more detail on this next week, because I'll take up the whole of question time if I do it now. But, suffice it to say that, as a result of an inter-ministerial group meeting with Michael Gove, we've made some progress in making sure that we're included in the negotiations with the main developers. Next week, I'll be able to give some more detail of that. The issues that we were unhappy with were the last-minute additions to the Building Safety Act that we had no real time to consider. Although, we did not want to be involved in one aspect of that—that's where the leaseholders are the backstop payees, because we still take the view that leaseholders should not be made to pay for the remediation of the buildings even as a backstop, but I'll go into more detail in my statement next week.