Questions now from party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson, Janet Finch-Saunders. 

Diolch, Llywydd, and thank you, Minister, Now, there is no denying that the UK Government is taking decisive action to tackle unsafe buildings. The Rt Hon Michael Gove MP has sent all developers legally binding contracts that will commit them to pay to repair these unsafe buildings. This contract will see developers commit an estimated £2 billion or more for repairs to buildings that they've developed or refurbished over the past 30 years, and protect thousands of leaseholders living in hundreds of buildings across England. In England, the UK Government is looking to prevent developers from operating freely in the housing market if they fail to sign and comply with the remediation contract. Will you do the same for those operating in Wales who either refuse to sign or breach the terms of the Welsh Government's developers pact?

Yes, Janet, I'm very well aware of Michael Gove's various pronouncements. I very recently met with the then Minister for housing, who's now the Minister for culture, media and sport, I believe—it's quite difficult to keep up—to talk about this. I have asked for a meeting with Michael Gove as well, but I haven't had one since his reincarnation. 

The programme here is virtually identical in every aspect that you just outlined. We have worked with the 11 major developers in Wales. They have all agreed to sign up to the pact. The legal documentation is with them at the moment. Clearly, they're looking to see what happens in England with the legal documentation there. Our documentation is different because the legal framework in Wales is different, but, nevertheless, the import is the same. Here in Wales, though, we're going slightly faster than that. We have two of the big developers already starting to remediate. We're very, very well on with our programme of surveys. We've only a few buildings left to go. The ones that are left to go that haven't been completed for the full intrusive survey are all because we needed a complex set of agreements from various freeholders and so on, which I won't go into, but there are complex management issues in some of the buildings. The others are where a whole main road has had to be closed in order to access the building to do it, and we've had to work with the local council to figure out a traffic management scheme to be able to do that. Other than that, they're all done. The reports are all pending. We'll be able to start the remediation works as soon as we can.

We're also working on a programme for what are called orphan buildings. There isn't, as far as I'm aware, a programme like this in England. We have 16 to 23 orphan buildings—it does slightly depend on what you call it. An orphan building is one where there is no responsible developer, insurer or managing agent who can be held responsible, and we'll be able to take forward a programme for actually doing the remediation for them.

But, I think this is the most important point here: I have always thought that the Government should step up to responsibility in this regard. We don't want to leave it to individual leaseholders to have to take legal action against the developers, which is what the English building Act does. I understand why they did that, but we don't think that's right. So, the contract here will be with us, and, if it isn't fulfilled, it will be down to us to take action against the developers. That's how it should be, in my view. I will also be exploring whether or not we can, for example, prevent builders from taking up planning consents that are existing and continuing on. That's a second phase of the work. But, I'm quite pleased that developers here have come along this journey with us.

And then the last thing I'll say on this point, and it's worth bearing this in mind, is some of the buildings, some of the loudest people in the campaign—and who can blame them for having a campaign; it's a horrible thing to live with—some of the loudest people are in buildings where there is extensive litigation under way in which we cannot interfere. So, we are hamstrung ourselves by some of the processes ongoing. But my heart continues to be absolutely with the people living with this. And the last thing I'd say to you, Janet, is if you know anyone who really is in dire straits with this, please recommend to them the buy-out scheme, because we haven't had as much interest in that as we'd have liked, and I'm hoping to get as much publicity to it as possible.

Thank you for that comprehensive answer, Minister, it's really appreciated. I'm sure you would agree with me that the longer it takes to resolve this crisis, the greater the mental and financial pressure for these vulnerable residents. I'm sure you'd agree with me too that we shouldn't be allowing other people to get on the back of this and actually benefit financially. The reason I'm mentioning this now is that individuals have written to me explaining, in some instances, that the service fee, since all this, for a three-bedroomed apartment has increased from £2,500 to around £5,000 a year. Alongside that, it's been alleged to me that as least one managing agent is charging an in-house brokerage fee for insurance, also serving section 20 notices, not carrying out the works, charging admin fees on top of the management fee, and that some have no corporate policy for proactive maintenance or for the regular checking of singular compartmentalisation of escape routes. That strikes me as an abhorrent management regime. Would you be prepared to look into this further by means of a review or some form of inquiry to establish how exactly each managing agent in Wales has responded to this cladding crisis and if there is any sign that some could actually be profiteering from this situation?

Yes, I'm very well aware of this as well. I've had one of the biggest managing agents in to see me very recently. I have a constituency full of people who have got this problem, so I'm dealing with it locally as well. It's sometimes difficult to separate the building safety from building structure issues, which can be complicated as well. So, we’re looking to see whether we can solve building structure issues, which are not necessarily building safety issues, simultaneously, as two lots of work obviously is nonsensical. But I also, in the conversation with Lucy Frazer, will be continuing this with the officials and I’ll obviously seek a meeting with the new housing Minister as soon as I know who that is. But we discussed with her and her officials the leasehold reform programme that the UK Government is taking forward.

You’ll know, Janet, that the complexity of the devolution settlement in this area is a difficulty. I know people hate me talking about how complex this is, but there’s no getting away from it. Whether or not the Welsh Government can in fact regulate managing agents is one of the things that we’re looking at and there are some complex legal issues there. But what’s really clear is that most of the big managing agents work across England and Wales, and so we need to make sure that we have a proper programme—I think you’ll agree with me there.

So, I very much hope, and we are working very much towards the UK Government legislating for managing agents and leasehold reform, and I hope they will add in estate agents at the point of sale, because various colleagues around this Chamber—Hefin David in particular comes to mind—have brought up the issue of estate management fees on a number of occasions, and they’re dealt with by the same body of people. So, the answer to your question simply is: yes, we’re very well aware of it. Yes, we’re getting the managing agents in to speak to us. I will be hosting a meeting for all of them in Wales, including the small ones, very soon. But really what we need is a system of regulation that sets out their professional qualifications and what they can charge for.

And, Llywydd, at the risk of trying your patience with the length of my answer—and I apologise; it’s a very complicated area—just to say that we also feel that there should be coverage for this in the building reform piece that we will be bringing in front of the Senedd, so that when we have new builds in future, it will be very clear who can and who can’t be a managing agent.

Thank you, again, Minister. I can't argue with that response at all.

Now, my final point: in the budget for 2023-24, building safety funding is set to receive a 37 per cent reduction in resource. Despite the indicative budget setting aside £9.5 million for 2023-24, the draft budget allocation has dropped to £6 million. I'm just a little baffled and maybe you could explain better. So, how can you on the one hand say that building safety is one of your top priorities, but you're cutting it at the same time?

So, it's a multi-angled programme, basically, and so, what we're having to do is calibrate the budget out to the point where we're doing the remedial work. So, you'll see that we're spending less at the beginning of the programme because we're doing surveys. We have done some remediation. We've obviously done remediation in social buildings that meet the criteria, for example. We're about to start the orphan building remediation that I discussed. Some of the buildings that are in private sector ownership will go into remediation. But it's quite clear that this programme will run over several years—four or five years for this kind of capital programme, generally speaking. So, you need to look at the budget in the round.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson now, Mabon ap Gwynfor, to ask his questions to the Deputy Minister. Mabon ap Gwynfor.

Thank you, Llywydd. I want to start by acknowledging that there's a great deal of work going on at the moment with public transport services in Wales. The recent report by the North Wales Transport Commission was very interesting, for example, with one particular interesting statistic, which stated that two-thirds of the journeys of people in north Wales were 15 km or less, but that data was heavily weighted towards the more populated areas obviously.

A number of metro schemes are also in the pipeline, and if we look again at north Wales, there is significant talk there about developing train links from Llandudno and Wrexham to Liverpool and Manchester. The Swansea bay metro in south-west Wales talks about the urban centres, again. But what is notable in all of this is the total absence of plans for rural Wales. Where are Ceredigion, Powys, most of Gwynedd, and the heartlands in these metro programmes? So, what are the Government's ambitions in ensuring that residents in rural Wales can access public transport?

Thank you very much for that important set of questions. In fact, the data published by the Burns commission for north Wales showed that, even in rural areas, the majority of journeys were relatively short and, in principle, many of them could be replaced by public transport and active travel if the services were there. I have been conducting a series of round-tables with local authorities and others across different parts of Wales, and what's striking is that when you map rural areas, there are rural areas in every county of Wales. It's not just a mid Wales issue, or a north-west Wales issue; rurality is everywhere, and the issue of accessibility and choice is a real challenge across the country.

We know from other countries that where different choices are made, you can have a viable public transport system in deep rural areas. If you look at Sweden, Germany or Switzerland, even the small villages have a bus service every hour. So, there's no reason in principle why we couldn't make a much better offer for rural areas. It's a question of resource and political choice. Now, if we are going to meet the climate change targets that we're all committed to, we clearly need to see modal shift, people moving from cars to sustainable transport in all parts of Wales. One of our foci is to say, 'How do we make what we know is the right thing to do the easiest thing to do?', because human nature is to do the easiest thing, and, at the moment, in many parts of Wales it simply isn't easy, or in many communities it's not possible at all after 5 or 6 o'clock at night to catch a bus. So, we know we're not starting from a great place, and we know that this is going to take some time to happen.

As part of the co-operation agreement, we are looking at transport corridors in west Wales. The designated Member Siân Gwenllian and I have agreed a programme of work with Transport for Wales to assess the possibilities for primarily bus corridors in west Wales, but also looking at how, in planning terms, we can preserve the old railway line between Aberystwyth and Carmarthen. But, at some point it's going to become a choice of where we put the scarce investment we have and where the priority is. That, I think, is our dilemma, because from a carbon point of view we're always going to want to achieve the quickest reductions and the largest reductions in carbon. Clearly, investments in rural areas will be more expensive and have a smaller carbon impact, and there's going to be that tension that we need to resolve. But I'm very clear that unless we address the rural issue, we're not going to be able to succeed in our overall vision.

I thank the Deputy Minister for that response and the warm words in supporting provision in rural areas, but further to that, it's been brought to my attention that the bus emergency scheme that was introduced during COVID is to be redirected to meet other requirements within Government, and that this funding will come to an end very suddenly indeed.

A number of bus providers have contacted Members on these benches over the past few days saying that this BES scheme, which was supposed to extend for another year, is to be dropped at the end of this financial year. This, of course, has destroyed the plans of these bus companies and means that they can't give necessary notice for bringing particular routes to an end. These are local and relatively small providers in the most part, that don't have great reserves to compensate for some of these routes. As a result, they warn us that this will mean that many routes will disappear, and some businesses may also go bust. Those bus providers are tuning in to this session today, listening in to hear whether the Deputy Minister can give them an assurance that the budget and grant will continue to support these bus routes. So, can I ask the Minister to give us an assurance that the funding for bus services in Wales, which means the bus emergency scheme, will not be cut, and that it will continue for the next financial year?

Well, it's more than just warm words. We have spent £150 million since the start of the pandemic in saving the bus industry in Wales. So, let's be very clear about that: without the help and intervention of the Welsh Government, the bus industry would have gone bankrupt; there wouldn't be any bus services. So, I think it's only fair to reflect that we have put our money where our mouth is.

Now, the whole point of the bus emergency scheme—the clue is in the title—it was for an emergency; it was never meant as a long-term piece of funding, and it was always intended to come to an end. Now, the challenge we have is that the patronage levels have not returned to the pre-pandemic levels. So, we are supporting a bus network that no longer has the same behaviours as the one that came before. So, in a sense, we're ossifying a bus network. Even the industry agrees that we do need to rationalise and re-look at the bus networks in Wales.

Now, we've been doing this far more generously than England has; we've sustained a far greater use of bus provision than has happened the other side of the border. I think any fair look would look at the cuts that are being made in England right now, where the bus industry has faced a cliff edge right across the UK because of this disconnect between the reality, the behaviours, and the economics of the use of public transport. So, we've got a genuine problem here, in that usage rates, particularly amongst pensioners, have not returned to the rates that we want to see. And we simply do not have the money to keep sustaining the bus emergency scheme at the levels that were true during the height of the pandemic. So, we have a problem.

We are working closely with the industry. Julie James and I met with the operators on Friday of last week. We've been meeting right throughout this week, and we'll be meeting again with them this Friday, because they've hit the deadline of when they have to give notice to the traffic commissioner for handing back these contracts. We've spoken to the traffic commissioner about offering some discretion about when that trigger point is reached, and they are certainly open to being pragmatic about that. And what we want is to taper off the scheme, not face a cliff edge. But we do have to end the support, sooner rather than later. So, we're trying our best to come up with a solution that does not see lots of routes being surrendered, but the financial position we're in—our budget—is very, very, very challenging, and we're working through this week to see what we can do.