North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has once again highlighted the Welsh Government’s failure to get to grips with the housing crisis facing Wales and asked when they will start consulting the whole housing sector over how to tackle the problem.
Questioning the Minister for Climate Change in yesterday’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Mr Isherwood stressed that despite repeated warnings there would be a housing shortage, the Labour Welsh Government failed to take action.
He said:
“Up-to-date StatsWales figures show that 7,492 new Social Homes were delivered in Wales during the first 12 years of devolved Labour Government, 11 of which coincided with a UK Labour Government—a 73.45 per cent fall on the 28,215 new Social Homes delivered in Wales during the 12 years of UK Conservative Government up to 1997.
“The 2012 UK Housing Review stated that ‘it was the Welsh Government itself that gave housing lower priority in its overall budgets, so that by 2009/10 it had by far the lowest proportional level of housing expenditure of any of the four UK countries’. In 2019, the highest year for UK new home registrations since 2007, the numbers in Wales fell by over 12 per cent. Even the latest published figures for quarter 2 of this year show that Wales was the only nation or region of 12 in the UK to see new home completions reduce. If you dispute any of these official figures, I can send them to you.
“So, if you don't dispute these, when will you stop telling and start asking the whole housing sector, including cross-sector housing providers, how to tackle Labour' long-standing affordable housing supply crisis in Wales, which I and the whole sector began warning Labour Welsh Government about 18 years ago?”
Commenting later, Mr Isherwood added:
“Successive independent reports have found that Wales needs at least 12,000 new homes annually if we are to break the Housing crisis, but the Welsh Government’s only target is to build 4,000 low carbon affordable homes annually over this Senedd Term. Even this is looking increasingly unachievable, where Wales alone is going backwards. This is the reality behind the rhetoric and buck-passing.”