Questions now from party spokespeople. First, the Conservative spokesperson, Janet Finch-Saunders.

Thank you. Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, last Friday I joined an urgent meeting with a group of registered social landlords to discuss the future of social housing in Wales. Amongst their fears and their worries and concerns, there was this feeling that Welsh Government, in their opinion, has failed to create a strong foundation to drive social housing new builds. Only around 9,000 housing association and local authority homes were built between 2010 and 2019, an average of 1,000 annually. This is way below even your estimate that between 3,000 and 6,000 new homes are required over the next five years. In fact, your own manifesto commitment that says you'd build

'20,000 new low carbon social homes for rent' is hanging by a thread. RSLs have warned me that if they are unable to increase rents in line with inflation this year, serious cuts will have to be made to the services they provide. They provide debt advice. There are a lot of things that registered social landlords bring in providing quality accommodation. I would certainly like to put on record my thanks for the role they play in providing homes for people in Wales. But also, serious cuts would have an impact on their ability to continue with building projects. What steps will you take to ensure that the RSLs themselves do not have to in any way stall the building of new social housing?

Once again, Janet, asking me these questions in the complete absence of any understanding of the overall financial arrangements in the UK at the moment is just extraordinary. We are facing a cost-of-living crisis across the UK, entirely as a result of the idiotic decisions of the Conservative Government.

We have a very difficult decision to make on setting the rent caps for Wales for social housing—a very difficult decision indeed. You are absolutely right that that is a finely balanced decision based on making sure that we have the rental stream income to ensure that we have both repair and maintenance budgets and new-build budgets capable of meeting the increasing demand—the increasing demand caused by the number of people unable to keep a roof over their head because of the cost-of-living crisis. So, we have a lovely circular vicious circle going on here. That is a very difficult decision to make indeed.

We have around 20 per cent to 30 per cent of our tenants who are self-paying—it depends on which RSL and council you're talking to. It's obviously variant, but it's around 20 per cent to 30 per cent of tenants who are self-paying, who are amongst the lowest paid workers in our public services and in our gig economy who need to be able to keep a roof over their heads in social housing. Then, as we have rehearsed many times, the Conservative Government has seen fit to freeze the local housing allowance, an act of extreme stupidity given the volatility in the housing market. So, there are a number of macro-economic decisions here that are making the situation here considerably worse.

We also have, as you know, global supply chain problems. We have huge problems with getting construction firms to be able to have both the workers and the construction materials they need, because we can no longer recruit the workers from abroad that we used to have. We have a perfect storm of misery. So, of course we want to accelerate that. We work very hard with our RSLs and our social housing providers. I meet with them very regularly, both individually and with the overarching groups. The idea that there is some silver bullet to fix this that isn't related to the mess the economy is currently in is, I'm sorry, just complete pie in the sky.

So, it is hanging by a thread, our ability to build 20,000 low carbon homes. We are almost certainly facing the worst cuts that we have ever seen right across public services. Although, if your Government saw fit to actually announce it at the same time as they announced the mess that they had, we would know already. How you can ask me that question, divorced from the macro-economic situation, I just cannot imagine.

Minister, I am not here to scrutinise your performance over the last few weeks, but I am here to scrutinise and challenge the performance of a Welsh Labour Government over 23 years that has failed consistently, year on year, to build the right number of houses. You must now—. Stop looking to the UK Government to blame them. This is your mess. Devolution under a Welsh Labour Government over the last 23 years has denied many in my community a home and a roof above their head. You must use the levers at your disposal now to ensure that sufficient house building goes ahead. We do not want a repeat of the situation that saw the First Minister take a year and a half, from January 2021 to July 2022, to hold a summit to discuss the serious house building crisis, which has been called by Natural Resources Wales—and they are very close to you—. And their guidance on phosphorous—. In fact, I have been warned that the likely release of marine nutrient data by NRW could now potentially extend the areas impacted across Wales and result in coastal authorities now being unable to grant planning permission for houses. You stated last week— 

You're going to need to come to your question.

I am. You said that this level of discussion about the release of marine nutrients is held at official level. You need to take a leadership role in this. And will you clarify, Minister, whether you are developing a strategy in case the release of marine nutrient data leads to yet more nutrient management issues that exacerbate the house building crisis?

Yet again, Janet, this is like trying to discuss the 1930s without reference to the depression. The idea that you can tell me that my target for phosphates is holding up house building, when you yourself go on about apparently believing in a climate and nature emergency, is just breathtaking, frankly. Our rivers are in a right mess. We need to do something about all of the people who are contributing to that, and that is across a large number of sectors. That is absolutely the water companies; it is absolutely the house builders; it is absolutely the agricultural sector. It is every single sector that is contributing to that. We had a summit over the summer, in which every sector agreed with the First Minister that they would step up to their own responsibility in doing that. NRW, of course, monitor that, and they are, of course, the enforcer, but it is far, far more complicated than that. And for you to tell me that you think the answer to that is for us to take off all limits on what can be built along our rivers and coasts and allow willy-nilly house building, because my phosphate levels are somehow preventing that, whilst simultaneously telling me constantly that you believe in a climate and nature emergency, is, frankly, hypocrisy such as I have seldom seen. 

Thank you, Minister. I can honestly assure you that no-one has ever needed to put words in my mouth. We don't need to go back to the 1930s; 23 years is long enough for the people of Wales to have been failed by your lack of house building. Central to the house building process in Wales are planning and regulatory officers, but so overwhelmed are they with work that I know my own local authority is not able to check adherence to planning conditions, and are now only pursuing enforcement upon complaint. [Interruption.] Sh!

Minister, the Welsh Local Government Association, the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management Wales, Newport City Council, Flintshire County Council and Caerphilly have expressed concerns about a lack of resources and capacity within local authorities for enforcement. So, will you co-operate with us, with your officers across our planning authorities, to ensure that they do have the necessary resources to deal with planning more quickly—more planning applications allowed to go through—so that it helps towards your targets? And, also, we need to have an efficient enforcement process in Wales. Thank you. 

Again, Janet, how do you think those people are paid for? 

Just answer the question. 

I am answering the question. Those people are paid for from the rates support grant. Right? That has been cut successively by Conservative Governments over the last 10 years. Planners are the back-room staff so beloved of Conservative Governments for pillorying for being wasteful. This is the direct result of your austerity policies, with apparently yet more to come. If you think that there is a magic money tree here in the Welsh Government, you are much mistaken. I have not yet found it; it does not exist. Your Government in Westminster is entirely, entirely responsible for the lack of investment in public services, which leads directly to the lack of growth. The anti-growth coalition, Janet, I'm afraid, is absolutely on your benches and in your Government. 

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Mabon ap Gwynfor. 

Thank you very much, Llywydd. I want to start by mentioning something that's common across Wales, but by using an example from my own constituency. A constituent of mine is a single parent, who's had to move in with her sister, because her former partner evicted her from her home. She is now living in a three-bedroomed home, but there are nine people living in that property. She is on the council waiting list, but there's no social housing available, so she's looking for private rental accommodation. Unfortunately, she's been priced out of the private rental market. The cheapest she can find in the area is £700 per month, but she has to prove that she has an income of three times the rent for the agent and the landlord to let it to her. That's £25,000 per year, which is more than the average wage in my constituency. She has no hope of showing that she has an income of £2,100 a month, and apparently this practice of going for a salary three times the rent is very common in the sector. There is talk that she could find a guarantor, but, again, you need family with deep pockets to do that. Do you agree with me that this practice of putting barriers in the way of people on low incomes from accessing the rental sector should come to an end, and what steps are you taking in order to remove these barriers to low-income renters? Thank you.

Absolutely, Mabon, we have some practices growing up in the rental sector that are clearly putting barriers in place for people who want to get there. Obviously, what we'd really like to do is build social homes at pace and scale. I've just had a conversation with the benches opposite about the macroeconomic factors that are preventing us going as fast as we'd like, but I would like to just say that we have put absolutely record levels of investment into that, both through the social housing grant and with our councils. So, we are still building them, but the intervention rate that we are now having to put in is significantly increased for each individual house. The money that we've put aside, despite being at record levels, is, of course, eroded by inflation, which has gone into double figures, I understand, today. It's quite clear, isn't it, that that macroeconomic picture erodes the buying power that we have here in Wales with a fixed income, effectively.

But we are working with the local councils to make sure that they can put up guarantees and bonds for tenants who find themselves in that position in the private rented sector. We are working with our private sector landlords, who we can contact through Rent Smart Wales, to make sure that they know about that and they are willing and able to accept guarantees and bonds from the local authority. That's not open to absolutely everybody, but it sounds as if your constituent would be on the social housing list anyway and would be eligible.

Obviously, I'm constantly saying to the benches opposite that increasing the local housing allowance in line with inflation, as they ought to have done, would significantly help in the situation you find yourself in. We are working with private sector landlords as well to make sure that we get as many of them across into Leasing Scheme Wales as possible, and that's growing apace.

I know that we're having a conversation about rent levels and rent capping, and so on, but, genuinely, we are watching what's happening in Scotland and Ireland with great interest. You'll know that both Governments are currently threatened with legal action over what's happened. I would be really interested to have a conversation with private sector landlords in various areas of Wales to understand what their appetite for staying in the market is, especially if the rent was capped. So, if that landlord can't get that level of rent, what will they do with the house? The difficulty is that, in a volatile housing market and with this kind of interest rate, the likelihood is that that landlord may well sell that house, because they can get similar levels of income from investing the money in the markets, because high inflation obviously helps savers, it only disenfranchises borrowers.

So, genuinely, we are trying to hit again the sweet spot between helping people get into these houses so that they can have a roof over their head, with all the factors that we have about growing social homes as fast as we can, but I also want to incentivise the private sector to stay in the market, so working with them to know what would help. For example, Members very shortly will be hearing from us about things like how we can incentivise the PRS to bring their homes up to the Welsh housing quality standard so that tenants are paying much lower bills when they get into their homes. It's not only the high rent, it's the level of energy expenditure and so on that's really important.

My heart goes out to people all over Wales who find themselves in that situation. We really must go at scale and pace in building those new homes, but we really do need to work with our private rented sector as well to get stability into the market and a decent level of return, whilst providing those homes for people. I'm very happy to look at the specific example, though, if you want to write to me.

I thank the Minister for that response.

The next question, if I may, is on recent research that was commissioned by Back the Bill partners, including Tai Pawb, Shelter Cymru and the Chartered Institute of Housing Cymru. They found that introducing a right to adequate housing would generate significant savings for the public purse. The benefits are significant. The research identified benefits to the public purse worth £11.5 billion over a 30-year period, with an initial 10-year cost of £5 billion. It goes without saying that investing in the improved quality and suitability of homes would lead to fewer hospital admissions. Equally, with a gradual increase in the number of suitable homes available, there'd be less reliance on council and other homelessness support services and so on. So, we welcome the upcoming White Paper, and the Green Paper announced last week in this area, and I very much look forward to co-operating with you to ensure the housing sector can provide for everyone's needs in Wales. However, after decades of chronic underfunding in social housing, does the Minister agree that now is the time to implement an invest-to-save model, as advocated for by Tai Pawb, Shelter Cymru and CIH Cymru, and to embed the right to adequate housing into legislation, as embedded in the United Nations convention on human rights? 

I'm very interested indeed in trialling a right to adequate housing in this Senedd term, for sure. But one of the things we have to make sure is that we get the dominoes in a row first. Members will have heard me speak—my time sense is terrible—very recently in the Chamber about the homelessness legislation that we're about to bring forward. We see that as the first step in securing a continuum towards the right to adequate housing, because, frankly, if you don't have the right not to be homeless, then you're a long way off adequate housing. So, for us, it's about making sure that we line up the legislation so that it seamlessly fits into the ability of the local homelessness services to supply you with the adequate housing that you ought to be able to have.

The truth is that, after all the austerity that we faced—. And bear in mind that the right-to-buy scheme forbade local authorities to replace the social housing that was being sold off, absolutely forbade it, and that it was in my lifetime as a politician that the housing revenue accounts were finally uncapped by the Conservative Government, so that the councils could build again. This is always conveniently forgotten by people on the other benches. We need to wrap that up, we need to get the skills back into those organisations, and then we need to enshrine the right to adequate housing. I would like the right to adequate housing to be more than just an idea, but to be an enforceable individual right, and that's a big step from just enshrining it as a general principle in law. So, we are very pleased to work with Plaid Cymru on the co-operation agreement towards making sure that we do get there, because get there I'm sure we can.