, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
It's called 'housing with care' these days.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Yes, so, we’ve increased the final budgets for all of these schemes. They’re up 83 per cent, from £1.641 million to £3 million, and the ENABLE grants are up by 20 per cent as well—I’ve just finally found my piece of paper. And we’ve reflected in that the real…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
That’s right, yes. Sorry, I had an absolutely blank moment about that, then. Yes, so those are for much larger adaptations. So, as you know, Care and Repair does everything from putting a handrail in for you, ramps and adaptations to whole kitchen adaptations…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Thank you. Disabled facilities grants.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Yes. On that one, we run Care and Repair from this portfolio, obviously. We’ve made a number of adaptations to that—no pun intended—over the last year or so, the best of which is that we’ve stopped the means testing for the small and medium adaptations. So…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
And then, just to add to that, the last piece of that is elsewhere in the portfolio. We also have Nest and Arbed. Arbed has finished as a scheme now, but we’re working on the replacement programme for that, and, of course, that’s wholly directed at privately…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
We're very keen to work with private sector landlords to make sure that they are able to bring their housing to standard, and, of course, because we've just implemented the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016—hallelujah; can I put that in brackets? It's been a…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
That's fab, isn't it?
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
So, we absolutely are not rowing back on the standard. There's absolutely no question of that whatsoever. All you do there is drive up the bill for future generations, and, although we're in a cost-of-living crisis, we're also in a climate emergency; it…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
And just to say, for completeness, that the financial part of this BEL line also supports the Help to Buy schemes that we still run in Wales.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Yes. So, you can probably see Dean and I looking to see which budget expenditure line it is, actually. I don't know if you know off the top of your head, Emma, do you? So, we've got different BEL lines for the housing programme revenue funding, for market…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
So, I'm going to get Emma to do the detail of that, I'm afraid. So, what we do is we ask the social landlords to—. As part of their financial health assessment, they have to look at their asset books and they have to look at their loan-to-asset ratio, as…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
No, absolutely, Carolyn. And that's a very good example. So, for house building, there are a range of solutions available, some of which will be the sustainable drainage systems programme, for example, some of which will be different drainage solutions for…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
So, the answer to that is that I don't know yet, because, until we've signed off the action plan, we don't know what that entails. So, the point of the summit on 6 February is to have, we hope, a signed-off action plan. Each sector has been working on its…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
The truth about that, Sam, is that I don't know. We are still putting the interventions in, we're able to adjust the grant, the housing market is extremely volatile, as I've just said, so it may well be that we're able to put other leverage in that we…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Quite clearly, the impact of rising costs is having an impact on our ability to do that. We’re having to intervene in the builds at much higher rates of grant than we otherwise would. Fortunately, fortuitously—or with great foresight, depending on your point…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
I think that the answer to that is 'yes'. We work very closely across the Government to do this. Obviously, the biggest lever for us is the association that we have with the local government Minister, with that particular hat on. So, we worked very closely…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Again, it’s a similar answer, I’m afraid. We have protected all of the programmes and put money back into people’s pockets to every extent that we can. So, there’s an extra £18.8 million in the discretionary assistance fund, for example, to continue to…
, 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, of course, it's not enough. As I said, we could put a lot more in, if we had it, but the trouble is that we don't have it. Our own budget is eroded by inflation as well. It was an enormous struggle to maintain the increase…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Diolch, Mabon. Yes, absolutely. So, the data shows clearly that demand is increasing. I've just said in my opening remarks that we know that the pressure on homelessness services across Wales hasn't abated and, in some places, has actually increased. We also…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Thank you, Chair. There's no doubt at all that we're facing one of the most difficult and challenging budget settlements in Wales that we've ever faced as a result of choices made elsewhere. Inflation has also eroded our budget to worryingly low levels, and…
, Plenary
Short Debate: Developing the hydrogen energy sector in Wales
Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I very much welcome the opportunity to respond to this really interesting debate, and thank you, Janet, for bringing it forward. And everybody is absolutely right: the climate emergency demands that we use all the tools at our disposal…
, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Offshore renewable energy
Certainly. I don't think you should be as patronising as that to other Members of this Senedd.
, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Offshore renewable energy
As I was saying, the UK Government relies far too heavily on the RAB mechanism for funding these things, which adds costs to customer bills, rather than on general taxation. It is regressive and it places a disproportionate burden on those who can least bear…
, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Offshore renewable energy
The difference there, of course, is that that's a hypothetical concern, and the actual concern was that the UK Government would not support it. We have recently done an end-to-end review of marine licensing in Wales, because we want to have the most effective…
