Thank you very much, Mark, and thank you for also always giving me updates and insights of the work that’s been carried out in north Wales, particularly in relation to the third-sector engagements and local authorities.

I do hope that we can establish good new working relationships with the new Government, the new Cabinet that’ll be announced over the next few days. You referred to the joint letter that I sent to Andrew Stephenson, who had been named as Minister for refugees by the previous Prime Minister in the department of housing and levelling up, but I have to say, no reply was received to that letter. I asked my officials, and indeed the Scottish Minister asked his officials, to request an urgent meeting with the new Minister, but there was no response. So, I am, in a positive and constructive way, looking towards immediately welcoming a new announcement, which I hope will be made, that we will have a Minister for refugees who we can follow up with. Because we urgently need responses to the questions that we’ve asked, particularly about the uplift to the £350 monthly payment to those hosts for the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

I’m interested as well that in England, a number of charities have come together. I think they wrote to the former Prime Minister to actually say very much what we’ve been saying, actually echoing, in fact, Lord Harrington’s call for an increased payment to hosts to help them through the winter. I think the generosity of hosts at a time of economic strain and cost-of-living pressures is extraordinary; the generosity of hosts across Wales with very different socioeconomic and financial means themselves. So, can I ask you and your colleagues in Westminster to ensure that we do get a positive response?

Local leadership is vital, so myself and the Minister for Finance and Local Government, and indeed the Minister for Climate Change, are meeting every fortnight with the leaders of local government. Our officials are working very closely, particularly around a framework for accommodation in terms of move-on opportunities. But that local leadership is robust, it’s positive. In fact, Ukraine is on the agenda as a standing item as we meet every fortnight. The response that we get from local leadership is about not just the support they’re giving to their welcome centres, if they have them in their county areas, but also ways in which they're supporting hosts as well, the hosts who are providing that important support for so many of our Ukrainian guests in Wales.

It's very important in terms of the move-on accommodation that's being provided that we look to, as the Minister for Climate Change was able to do last week, the £65 million transitional accommodation capital programme. This is something that will help us increase accommodation to support existing housing pressures, together with the Ukraine response. Local authorities are coming forward and working with registered social landlords to provide this type of accommodation. Of course, there's huge pressure on our capital programme, which you are well aware of, but this is transitional accommodation that can also meet a wide range of housing need in Wales. So, we hope that we will get the support, and that includes support in terms of UK Government's forthcoming announcements. We're very concerned about what this will mean for capital, because this will be a really important way to help those who are in housing need move forward. We have to remember that we've got more than 8,000 people in temporary accommodation already, and these are housing pressures that our local leaders are supporting.

Thank you, again, for raising the work and the support of the Polish integration society, and I will make sure that there is a response to them. And also, just in terms of any suggestion about other use of accommodation—I think you mentioned Russell George as well who had received an approach about possible use of short-life accommodation—they should go to the local authority in which that accommodation is provided.

Of course, it is a challenge regarding our supersponsor scheme. We are committed to it, it provides a safe way to welcome people, Ukrainians fleeing from that terrible conflict. They come here and they are given that support, that wraparound support that we have provided. Remember that the original commitment we made was for 1,000 Ukrainian people being supported; now we're four and five times the number of Ukrainian people that we're supporting through our supersponsor route. Our welcome centres are now running at full capacity, but we're working quickly to ensure there's a reliable pathway to longer term accommodation for everyone we accommodate.