Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 2:14 pm on 23 November 2022.
Well, I appreciate you raising it, and it is a good question, and I thank you for raising it. You have written to us and we are working on a response and getting to the bottom of the situation in Betsi Cadwaladr. Of course, not all vacant housing stock in public ownership is available or suitable for letting: they may well be being kept for other schemes; they may be part of further developments. So, it's not a simple picture; that's why we need to try to get to the bottom of it. [Interruption.] Janet Finch-Saunders tells me it's a lot simpler than I think. Well, things may seem simple from the opposition benches; I can promise you that, in Government, things are often a little more complex than they seem. But she is right to raise it, we want to tackle it; we have ambitious plans to bring empty homes across Wales back into use.
I was involved in a pilot in the Valleys taskforce, based on an excellent scheme that Rhondda Cynon Taf have been running for a number of years of giving grants to private homeowners to bring empty properties back into use. Rhondda Cynon Taf again are showing great leadership in increasing the council tax on empty homes and recycling that funding into getting more empties filled up, and that is something other local authorities have available to them. They can increase council tax by 300 per cent on empty homes that have been empty for more than six months. Across all social landlords—local authorities and RSLs—something like 1,700 units were vacant for over six months, and of these 286 units were available for letting and were awaiting a tenant.
So, there is considerable potential there to try and quickly get these back into use, and we are providing over £24 million to purchase and refurbish empty properties, and a further £65 million in what's snappily called the transitional accommodation capital programme, to respond to this. We'll be bringing more than 1,000 additional homes into use over the next 18 months as good quality, long-term homes for people. But I will write to you once we have further information on the specific example that you cite.