North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has tackled the Housing Minister this week over the social housing waiting list crisis facing Wales and the fall in the number of new builds in Wales, compared to the increase in England and Scotland.
Speaking in the Welsh Parliament yesterday, Mr Isherwood said huge cuts in new social housing by Labour Welsh Governments during the first three terms of the Assembly, and a drop in the number of overall new builds across Wales, has resulted in the housing crisis facing Wales today.
Questioning the Minister over action to address this, he said:
“After social housing waiting list figures for 2018 were published, showing more than 60,500 households on social housing waiting lists in Wales, Shelter Cymru referred to the situation as a ‘housing crisis’. But, of course, it was during the second Assembly when the ‘Homes for All Cymru’ campaign, including Shelter, warned that there would be a housing crisis if the Welsh Government didn't reverse its new social housing cuts - in fact, cut by over 70 per cent in the first three terms of the Assembly.
“Reducing pressure on social housing waiting lists includes greater supply of broader affordable housing, whether that's intermediate rent or low-cost home ownership. Why, therefore, do you think it is that the NHBC's ‘new homes registered figures’ published a month ago, for 2019, show that, although new homes registered in England and Scotland went up, they fell in Wales from 5,448 to 4,769?”
In her response, the Minister lay the blame with the UK Government, stating “you wouldn't take the housing revenue account caps off us until the end of last year” and “the reason that we have dire social housing need is because you sold the social housing stock”.
Commenting outside the Chamber, Mr Isherwood added:
“The building of new social housing in Wales collapsed because successive Labour Welsh Governments slashed the Social Housing Grant after devolution. National House-Building Council (NHBC) figures for 2019 show that new home registrations, which include social and affordable housing, are still going backwards in Wales. The UK Government abolished the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Subsidy System in April 2012 - something which 13 years of UK Labour Government had failed to do – permitting Councils to keep the rents they collected locally for the first time, but setting a cap on what could be borrowed because of the potential impact on overall UK borrowing. In June 2013 the Welsh Government finally agreed with the UK Treasury on the terms under which the 11 Local Authorities in Wales with housing stock could exit from the HRA Subsidy System and become self-financing – and by October 2018 the UK Government was also able to announce that the HRA borrowing cap would be lifted for Local Authorities. The Welsh Conservatives also set out proposals to reform ‘right to buy’, investing the proceeds of sales in new social housing, thereby increasing affordable housing supply and helping to tackle Labour’s housing supply crisis, reflecting the ‘right-to-buy’ policy introduced by Conservative UK Government in England after 2010. Labour Welsh Government policy has prevented this.”
