North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has today challenged the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government over her claims that the Welsh Government is on track to deliver 20,000 new social homes for rent.
Responding to the Cabinet Secretary's Statement 'More Homes' in this afternoon's meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Mr Isherwood said the Statement failed to provide the full picture.
He said:
"When this Welsh Government published its 2021- 2026 Programme for Government to April 2026, it contained the explicit commitment to 'build 20,000 new low carbon social homes for rent'.
"You state today that you are on track to deliver an additional 20,000 homes for rent in the social sector by November, 6 months late, and you fail to say that you have added homes that are not new builds and not for social rent, including intermediate rent homes and shared ownership schemes.
"Why did you fail to make this clear, or to reference the official data showing:
· that Welsh Government cut new social housing in Wales by over 70 per cent in the first three Assembly (now Senedd) terms from 1999, which included a Labour/Plaid Cymru Coalition Government;
· that the 2012 UK Housing Review stated that, by 2010, the Welsh Government had by far the lowest proportional level of housing expenditure of any of the four UK countries;
· that it took the UK Conservative Government from 2010 just 6 years to deliver twice as many Council Houses in England than in all of the 13 years combined of the previous Labour Government, whilst Wales still lagged behind;
· or that, even last year, Wales was the only UK nation to see fewer new home registrations than in 2012?"
In her response, the Cabinet Secretary laid blame with the previous UK Conservative Government.
Speaking after the meeting Mr Isherwood said:
“Warnings from 2004 by the whole Housing Sector in Wales that a housing crisis lay ahead if the Welsh Government didn’t change tack were repeatedly ignored.
"Housing has been devolved since 1999 and passing the buck to post-2010 UK Conservative Government is no consolation to the thousands of Welsh households affected by Wales’ housing emergency today, especially when the delivery of new homes in Wales has lagged behind the rest of the UK irrespective of which Party has been in UK Government.”
