Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 19 October 2022.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 1:41, 19 October 2022

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.