Yes, so that’s a very interesting point, isn’t it? So, we do absolutely have to do a balance of that, of course, because we’re basically using the rental income of current tenants to build the houses of the future. So, in talking to TPAS and other tenants’ organisations, we’re very keen to ensure that the tenants who are currently paying their rent are getting the services that they require and the decarbonisation they want for their rent, as well as understanding that their rent is being used to support borrowing and so on, to build the new houses, and it’s a very important balance. So, we work very carefully with tenants’ associations and with the registered social landlords and councils to try and strike that balance. It’s how we came to the conclusion on the rent settlement for this year. So, we’d consulted widely about what that might look like and what the impact of that would be on people self-paying, for example. You know that large numbers of people in social housing get some kind of income support for that, but we do have a substantial number—20, 25 per cent—of people who pay their own rent, and so affordability is a really important part of that. So, this is the balance between us making sure that the current housing stock is fit for those people to inhabit, and that they’re getting a good return for their rent, if you like, and also that it’s an investment in the future. So, we think we’ve hit the right balance there with the decarbonisation programme, the fuel efficiency programmes and the repair and maintenance programmes.
I have to say, Chair—I mean, this is nothing to do with the budget, really, but I think the committee will be interested—we have just written out again and reiterated the whole thing about damp and mould, so I really hope that that would never happen in Wales. So, we've just, once again, absolutely underlined—. Emma's written out again to say, 'Can we be absolutely certain that, here in Wales, we do not have people living in those kinds of conditions?' It's already part of the Welsh housing quality standard, but given the recent issues in some of the authorities—it's just appalling, isn't it—we just wanted to really underline that people have a duty and a responsibility to make sure that the living conditions of people in social housing are as they ought to be. So, that is the balance that we're striking.
We've just announced the most recent iteration of the Welsh housing quality standard—that's to get us to decarbonisation. The first part of that is the whole housing stock assessment. So, we're expecting people to take one to three years. There's some dispute in the industry about how long it will take, and I spoke at the decarbonisation conference recently, where a large number of people thought it shouldn’t take three years, but, anyway, one to three years to do a whole housing stock assessment, so that we can then properly calibrate what it will take to get from where we are now to the new iteration as well. And then we can calibrate what the rental stream incomes need to look like and what our grant aid needs to look like to get there. I think it’s fair to say that, given the current settlement, it will take us longer to get there now than we would have liked, but that’s not to say that we won’t be on the journey to do it.