7. How does the Welsh Government ensure a sustainable supply of housing? OQ58556

We are supporting the housing sector to continue to supply new homes in the context of current challenges. Our new local housing market assessment approach assists local authorities to plan a sustainable housing supply that will meet local need.

Thanks for your response. Up-to-date Stats Wales figures show that 7,492 new social homes were delivered in Wales during the first 12 years of devolved Labour Government, 11 of which coincided with a UK Labour Government—a 73.45 per cent fall on the 28,215 new social homes delivered in Wales during the 12 years of a UK Conservative Government up to 1997. The 2012 UK housing review stated that it was the Welsh Government itself that gave housing lower priority in its overall budgets, so that by 2009-10, it had by far the lowest proportional level of housing expenditure of any of the four countries. In 2019, the highest year for UK new home registration since 2007, the numbers in Wales fell by over 12 per cent. Even the latest published figures for quarter 2 of this year show that Wales was the only nation or region of 12 in the UK to see new home completions reduce. If you dispute any of these official figures, I can send them to you. 

So, if you don't dispute these, when will you stop telling and start asking the whole housing sector, including cross-sector housing providers, how to tackle Labour's long-standing affordable housing supply crisis in Wales, which I and the whole sector—and Plaid Cymru at the time—began warning Labour Welsh Government about 18 years ago?

Well, you know, Mark, what I would say is, again, the Conservatives' ability to quote statistics outside of the macroeconomic situation just beggars belief. So, this Government has set record levels of social housing grant funding through the budget, so that's £300 million, and indicative draft budget allocations of £330 million for next year and £325 million for the year after that, subject, of course, to the absolute chaos that we see at Westminster. In north Wales, the social housing grant has increased from £48,533,745 spent in 2021-22 to £65,750,153 allocated in 2022-23. So, very significant increases—very nearly doubling, actually.

We have become the first nation to mandate that all new-build social housing grant funded homes are designed to EPC A rating, through the Welsh development quality requirements that were launched in July 2021. This is about more than just building any old house, chucking it up and making sure that you can call that a new build. Your own Government has had to put a new homes ombudsman in place because of the absolutely appalling state of many of the new homes you were so happily reading out the statistics on, Mark. They are absolutely appalling. They are badly built, they are draughty, they are hard to live in, and they've literally had to put an ombudsman in place to control the market. It is far, far better to have the proper local market housing assessment, the right level of mixed tenure, and the right level of insulation and carbon neutrality than to chuck up any old thing any old place and give yourself a tick.