Firstly, can I put on record my thanks to John Griffiths for his chairmanship in producing today's committee report on second homes, and also to my fellow colleagues on the committee, and the Minister, clerks and the committee support team who have come along and given evidence and supported us as a committee through this process? Of course, the issue around second homes has been a contentious issue for a long time in Wales, for a number of years, and that's why it's really important, as a committee, I believe, that we got stuck into this very early on in our formation as a committee. As we know, a lot of the Senedd's best work comes from committees and, in light of this, it was really encouraging to see, Minister, you accept 14 of the 15 recommendations, and accept one in principle as well. So, thank you for your engagement in this process as well.

In my contribution today, I'd like to put on record also my acknowledgement that it's certainly a challenge with the proportion of second homes in some communities in Wales. This came through clearly in the work we carried out as a committee. But also what came through clearly was that this challenge is by no means evenly split across Wales. The example that struck me during our work as a committee was that, in Abersoch, you're looking at around 50 per cent of the properties there that are either second homes or holiday homes, whereas a few miles up the road in Caernarfon about 0.5 per cent of the properties there fall into that category. So, the differences across communities are vast in places that aren't that far apart.

During our committee’s work, we found that some of our coastal and rural areas have some of the highest numbers of second homes, and combined with formerly residential properties switching to short-term holiday accommodation and some of the issues around affordability of homes in communities, those communities were certainly feeling that their sustainability is under threat. It was data from August last year that showed that Gwynedd had the highest number of second homes—about 9.5 per cent of the properties there. Anglesey was at 8.1 per cent and Ceredigion at 5.2 per cent, certainly highlighting those rural and coastal communities having to deal with this challenge the most across the country.

I was really grateful again to receive the amount of correspondence that I did from residents and from interested parties around this issue in their communities. I'm sure this is what also partly led us to recommendation 7 of our report, which states that

'The Welsh Government should clarify how local and national strategies will ensure a sufficient supply of housing that is of the appropriate type to meet local requirements and affordable in the context of local earnings.'

I think it's a really important recommendation that that understanding of nuance across Wales is coming through in strategy and in policy. In addition to this, we've found out that the second homes issue has been exacerbated following the COVID-19 pandemic, of course. We certainly want to welcome people into Wales and give them a warm welcome. However, recommendation 13 that states that

'The Welsh Government should commission research on the impact of...the Covid-19 pandemic on housing trends to assess the scale of movement from urban to rural and coastal areas.'

I was really pleased to see that recommendation in our report. One thing I'd like to perhaps focus on is the understanding of the issue around the number of houses being built in our rural communities as well, and the context of second homes within that. We know that of the nearly 1.4 million properties in Wales, the data we were using when the report was published showed that just under 20,000 of those properties are classified as second homes. That's 1.4 per cent of all the properties in Wales. It's 1.4 per cent that are second homes. Whilst I clarified this at the start of my contribution, that it's such an issue in some communities, the context of that number is not as significant, perhaps, as some would want us to believe.

The impact of such a negative message to our tourism industry has already been highlighted here today, and we were reminded in taking evidence that it's the tourism sector in Wales that accounts for 17.6 per cent of gross domestic product, and employs over 12 per cent of our residents in the country. That's why I welcomed recommendation 4, actually, which calls on the Welsh Government to commission further research on the impact of tourism on the sustainability of communities, because this sector is so important to our communities in terms of jobs and future opportunities.

Llywydd, I know time is running, so I'm going to just quickly canter through this last point here, which is actually around the importance around recommendation 8 in all of this, which states that the Welsh Government needs to provide an update to the Senedd on how it intends to achieve its target to build another 20,000 new social homes within this Senedd term, along with recommendation 10 from our report, which is seeking further efforts from the Welsh Government about how it's going to work with the private sector to develop more properties, especially in these communities where they are finding it difficult with the number of second and holiday homes.

Thank you, Llywydd, for just giving me a few more moments there. I'd like to thank again the committee and all those who contributed to what I think is a really helpful report in looking to how we deal with some of the challenges around second homes. Diolch.