Homelessness Prevention Services

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:35 pm on 13 December 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:35, 13 December 2022

Well, the phosphates issue is a genuine one, Llywydd. I was able to meet the major players in this area at the Royal Welsh Show earlier this year, and there's a follow-up meeting with all of those players planned for early in the new year. That is to make sure that all those organisations that have a part to play in resolving the phosphates issue are able to do that, and that nobody spends their time pointing the finger at somebody else and saying, 'If only they did something, then this problem could be solved'. Now, the spirit at the meeting in Llanelwedd was much better than that; I thought people did come genuinely looking to advance the things that lay within their own responsibility. What the answer cannot be, Llywydd, is to allow house building to happen in places without a plan to make sure that that house building does not add to the already excessive levels of pollution in rivers in Wales. The pollution crisis that we face in some parts of Wales is absolutely real, and we can't make that worse in order to make something else better. But we know that if every organisation makes its contribution, it is possible to go on developing new houses on land that otherwise would not be available for that purpose, but it does depend, as I say, on collecting together all those different contributions and unlocking the current barriers that exist to developments that we would like to see go ahead.