, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Motion under Standing Order 17.42 (vi) and (ix) to resolve to exclude the public from items 4 and 7 of today's meeting
Just on the levelling-up fund bid, Jenny, that's match funded by us, just be clear. So, £50 million from them, but also £50 million from us.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Motion under Standing Order 17.42 (vi) and (ix) to resolve to exclude the public from items 4 and 7 of today's meeting
Nor in the consequentials for Wales from any of the other projects either. That's worth mentioning.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Motion under Standing Order 17.42 (vi) and (ix) to resolve to exclude the public from items 4 and 7 of today's meeting
Diolch, Cadeirydd. It's absolutely axiomatic to this budget that inflation has been front and centre of our consideration, and it's eroded the budget to, as you all know, very worryingly low levels for us, and much more importantly, in some ways, for our…
, Plenary
The Allocation of Housing and Homelessness (Eligibility) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2023
Diolch, Llywydd. Just on the consultation point that the legislation and justice committee Chair raised, I'll just reiterate what I said: the amendments brought about by the draft regulations clearly reflect changes to immigration law, which are reserved…
, Plenary
The Allocation of Housing and Homelessness (Eligibility) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2023
Diolch, Llywydd. We've made the draft Allocation of Housing and Homelessness (Eligibility) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 in order to amend the Allocation of Housing and Homelessness (Eligibility) (Wales) Regulations 2014, known as the 2014 regulations…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Renewable Energy Targets
Thank you very much, Joyce. It's a very good point. We've been working for quite some time now with a range of stakeholders—and I know you know this—to make sure that we do a whole range of things. First of all, we attract the right kind of investment, and…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Renewable Energy Targets
Thank you, Mabon. Yes, we would like to have much more control over the national grid, absolutely, because of all of the issues we've discussed endlessly—the need to plan it out, the need for better investment, and so on. So, I think that's taken as read…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Renewable Energy Targets
Thank you, Alun. I absolutely agree with the last point. The big issue there is to make sure that the community has the renewable energy it wants and needs, but also there’s a huge piece there about not just community benefits, but proper community ownership…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Renewable Energy Targets
Diolch, Delyth. I think there's much to agree on there, and then I can do a bit of an explanation of where we are. So, just in terms of the grid itself, the national grid is one of the worst-named bits of it, really, because it's nothing of the sort; it's a…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Renewable Energy Targets
Thank you, Janet. I hope your throat gets better soon; I have every sympathy. As you know, I've had a very similar problem myself, so many sympathies there. Just in terms of the Crown Estate, obviously, we are in favour of the devolution of the Crown Estate…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Renewable Energy Targets
Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Today, I am publishing our consultation on revising Welsh Government's energy targets. Alongside this, I am also delighted to announce some important investment we are making to stimulate the renewables supply chain, driving economic…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Diolch.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Yes. The pilot is going well. We've been very pleased, indeed, with some of the accelerated things that have happened in the pilot. So, some of the Rent to Own things, for example, have been successful and other interventions have been successful. Some are…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
I do want the committee to understand quite how cross-Government this is. I cannot deliver this legislation from inside my own resource in my portfolio. I am utterly dependent on the central MEG, legal services, OLC, but also on resource from elsewhere in the…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Dean, do you want to add something?
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Yes. So, again, as you take legislation through the committees and towards the stage where it's introduced to the Senedd, more and more work is done, so then you start to have the work done on the regulatory impact assessment, the financial impact…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
So, the way that that works is that we have, again, a legislative sub-committee of the Cabinet. The legislative sub-committee is chaired by the Counsel General, and each of us that has legislation coming forward over the whole of this Senedd term is expected…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
In terms of registration and knowledge, yes, because that's what we ask Rent Smart Wales to do. We ask them to do the same thing in terms of keeping their properties up to scratch and so on. Rent Smart Wales does not collect rent data, for example. We haven't…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
We aren't asking them. It is not their role to balance that kind of—that's not what we ask them to do. They provide us with the data for what's happening, and, obviously, we make all the landlords go through all of the professional development courses and so…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
It's certainly possible that that's happening, isn't it, but private rents stay at the level that the market will tolerate, so if the people in the high-rise blocks who are tenants are being charged extra and they could move somewhere else in the market, I'm…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
I absolutely am aware of them, yes. Private sector rent has been increasing faster than in any other housing tenure, particularly in some parts of Wales; actually, it's gone up in all parts of Wales, really. And again, that's an effect of a number of…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
So, where there's a developer, we expect the developer to pay. But we also don't want to have to wait for the developer's cash flow circumstances to be in a position where they can do it. So, as I said, we're in the position of having a discussion with them…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
And then the other buildings—just for completeness, Jayne—there are a number of buildings that have managed to have the term 'orphan buildings' associated with them. What we mean by that is there's no developer to be traced; they've either gone out of…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
So, the short answer to that is 'no'. Each building is absolutely unique and so, there's no way to project the cost as a result of some surveys being done. We obviously have the results of the surveys for the buildings that have been surveyed, but there's…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Sorry, I haven't got my glasses on.
