, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
So, all the major developers have signed. All of them.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
It would have been lovely to have gone faster, wouldn't it? But, you know, I think we're getting there.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
So, we've got several categories of buildings. So, I think that's the thing to get your head around; maybe it's me who needs to get my head around it. So, there are actually four categories of building. So, there's the social homes, which are all in…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
Yes, so, just to be clear, we haven't taken it away; we've moved it into future years. It was quite obvious we weren't going to be able to spend it this year, so we've what's called 'reprofiled' it. So, it's a neat public sector methodology for shifting your…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
Yes, so the programme for government commitment is for empty buildings as well; it's not just homes, because we want to sort out empty shops and so on as well. We've got some independent research being commissioned, and the closing date was the beginning of…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
I'm going to have to get Stuart to explain some of the way that this works, because the stats for this are fiendish. But, yes, basically, if your house has been on the market for two years but it's actively being marketed, it's still an empty home and it's…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
No. They have to work inside the banking charter, obviously, and then what we do is we're signing up lenders to it. So, at the moment, we don't have every single lender signed up. We've got quite a lot of them, though, and we imagine that, as the scheme rolls…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
Yes. So, obviously, the point of this is to make the home more affordable for the person in the home. I was very clear yesterday in making the statement that this comes with mortgage debt advice—independent mortgage debt advice. So, the mortgage debt adviser…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
I'm very happy to do that. I'll make a statement after the summit, or the First Minister will—I'm not absolutely certain whether it's me or him, but there'll be a statement, and I'm very happy to keep the committee more specifically updated on some of the…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
Yes. So, the next summit is on 30 November; I'm chairing that. It's to go through the agreed action plan from last time and to get each sector to tell us where they are with the agreed pieces of work that they were doing. As you know, the whole purpose of…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
Yes, we're really happy to do that.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
The numbers I was quoting, is that the overall affordable or is it the social?
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
So that's—. I don't know, actually. Which one is that? That's our target, isn't it?
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
[Inaudible.]—specifically social homes for rent. So, that's 20,000 social homes for rent—new to the system, social homes to rent. So, we've been very specific about that. That's a different target from the previous Senedd, which was affordable and included…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
So, just to say on that, we work with the WLGA and with a whole series of other players in this field to try and make sure that we have good planning services where they're necessary. We give assistance to planning authorities through—. I haven't got my…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
Yes.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
The land development fund. Thank you. They've all got the same words but in a different order to confuse poor Ministers. So, basically, we'll help you clean it up if it's contaminated, we'll help you with an affordability package if it has stalled for some…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
Thank you very much, Sam, I'm glad you agree with me about the alphabet spaghetti. We love a three-letter acronym in the Welsh Government, I have to say. There's a piece of work for someone to do a compendium, I'm sure. So, we’re holding to our 20,000 new…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
Absolutely, Carolyn, and I absolutely acknowledge the point. We know that that's happening. We meet with Cymorth all the time; Katie and I are very familiar with one another. She does an excellent job, quite rightly, in highlighting that. But as Emma said, we…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
I just wanted to check I was talking about the same report. So, yes, absolutely. This is not a great situation. I really would have loved to have put more money into the housing support grant. This is of absolutely no comfort to anyone in the sector, but it…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
Yes, absolutely.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
I think it's the Cymorth report, Carolyn, isn't it, not Crisis, that's come out—
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
Yes, and whether we need to mandate it, or whether there's some other way of doing it is one of the things, again, we'll explore. In the end, what we want is we don't want people to leave hospital into homelessness, so the question is: 'What's the best way to…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
So, you think of the Bill as a whole—so, that's because they don't have a duty to do all the things that the Bill will set out. I would argue with you that, once you've got a public sector 'no wrong door' duty, then it becomes something that very much would…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Ministerial scrutiny session: Minister for Climate Change
Yes, indeed.
