, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
It doesn't impact the ring fence, no. The idea of it is to just take away the bureaucracy around which grant you have to apply for and so on. They overlap hugely, and it's just, clearly, administratively easier to combine them.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
No. Absolutely not. We're on target for the Bill. Emma can talk to you for the next 45 minutes about how we're managing that, if you like.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Yes. So, we've published an early working draft of the regulatory impact assessment alongside the consultation, and we've done that on purpose and invited specific consultation responses on that on the potential costs and benefits of the proposed reforms…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
One zero eight three and 1120 are being combined, basically.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
And just to add to that on the finance front, I don't know if you've got the charts of the BEL lines in front of you, Chair, but the BELs 1083 and 1120, which are the housing support grant and the homelessness BELs, are being combined, and the whole purpose…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
So, I don't want—. I haven't seen that evidence from the local government association, but the evidence we have from our relationship managers and from our work with the local authorities is that it's just not as black and white as that. They all do do…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Oh, 'enough' is a difficult concept, isn't it? I would love to give them more, but what we're trying to do is shift that spend from putting a sticking plaster on the end to the preventative work to stop people becoming homeless in the first place, which is…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Yes, that's right. So, something that can be brought forward for housing, but where there's contamination on the land and it makes it developmentally unviable for any commercial operation, there's a grant available to sort the land out before the build. So…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
There we are, see. They've all got the same words, but in a slightly different order to confuse the unwary.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Oh, right, but over 40,000, isn't it, anyway. When you think that, at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, we thought we had about 800 to 1,000 who might need housing, that's quite something, isn't it, that we found that many people in insecure housing right…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Yes. So, obviously, we've housed an enormous number of people. I can't quite remember, but it's up to 46,000, is it, at the moment, or just under?
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
I think it's worth expanding on that as well. We've worked very hard not to lower the standards in the face of a short-term budget difficulty. I've had lots of conversations right across local authorities and registered social landlords, for example, about…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
We don't have very much in the way of income generation of that sort in this part of the portfolio; that's largely associated with energy parts of the portfolio and the planning parts of the portfolio, where you'll see we've moved to full cost recovery on a…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
As you know, Chair, my ministerial expenditure group is very broad and we've had to take a view right across the entire MEG in terms of services. So, though you're only looking at the housing and regeneration budgets, you can't really understand what's…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
We've worked very hard indeed to protect most of the homelessness budgets. We've been able to keep the housing support grant flat, for example, and we've protected all of the other core budgets for homelessness. That has meant that some of the other budgets…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
Thank you very much for that question. It’s a really excellent one and it’s been great to see the Trivallis programme running out. As you rightly said, it’s part of the transitional accommodation capital programme that we established in 2022. The TACP…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
Thank you for the question, Vikki Howells. This Government remains committed to delivering 20,000 homes for rent in the social sector this Senedd term. To support this commitment, record levels of funding have been provided through the social housing grant…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
Thank you very much. It's a very good question, and the answer is a little bit complex, because it involves us engaging all sectors that have a role to play. We've been doing that for some considerable time. I hope Paul Davies has noticed the Teifi…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
Thank you for the question, Paul Davies. Preseli Pembrokeshire is home to 14 designated bathing waters, all achieving the highest classification of 'excellent'. It is also home to the Cleddau, a special area of conservation river known for its array of…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
Yes. It's an excellent question, because what we need to be able to do is find a solution for every type of house that we have in Wales, and that's very much what we've been trying to do. So, there's no point in a one-size-fits-all approach; we have seen the…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
It's an excellent question, Jayne. The underlying principle of both the Welsh quality housing standard and the optimised retrofit programme is to deliver improved social, economic and well-being outcomes for tenants and for their whole communities. We…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
Thank you very much, Jayne Bryant. The challenge to retrofit Welsh social homes is vast. We are supporting social housing landlords to understand their stock and the retrofit requirements to help us achieve the ambitious Welsh housing quality standard with…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
Well, I just simply don't recognise that characterisation. We exceeded our target by a considerable proportion at the end of the last Senedd term, and I've literally just read you the statistics showing us on target for this term, so I just—. Well, I mean…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
Thank you very much, Sarah. I'm absolutely delighted to join you in welcoming the opportunity. Our priority is to deliver more truly affordable homes within the social sector and to deliver 20,000 additional social homes for rent. Working with partners in…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
Thank you very much for the question. I'm delighted to say that Bridgend County Borough Council has just joined the Welsh Government’s Leasing Scheme Wales. This is the £30 million programme providing grants to local authorities to secure and manage safe and…
