Peter Black and South Wales West Liberal Democrats

Affordable Housing

Peter Black: I move that

the National Assembly for Wales:

1. notes the Welsh Assembly Government's commitment to ensure that the 'supply of affordable housing increases by at least 6,500' before 2011;

2. believes that increased supply means that there should be 6,500 more affordable homes in Wales by 2011 compared to 2007;

3. calls on the Welsh Assembly Government to take urgent action to maximise the number of affordable homes being provided in order to increase the chance of reaching this target. (NDM4431)

In moving the motion, I would like to refer briefly to the amendments. We will be happy to support amendment 2, as it is important that we plan for affordable housing. However, amendment 1, in many ways, sums up the problem that we are trying to highlight in our motion. Whenever we talk about the target in 'One Wales' of an additional 6,500 affordable homes by 2011, we enter a twilight zone in terms of the Government's response.

The 'One Wales' commitment, which is clearly set out in point 1 of the Government's amendment, amendment 1, states that the Government will seek to ensure that the supply of affordable housing increases by at least 6,500 in this Government term. I have never been clear about where that number came from. I would like to see that achieved, and I am sure that everyone in the Chamber would like to see those additional 6,500 affordable homes. Many housing associations and organisations such as Shelter say that number is not enough, but that that is superfluous to this debate today.

In its amendment, the Government then goes on to refer to the 4,235 additional affordable housing units that have been built in the last three years-we do not dispute that figure-and to state that, effectively, that means that the Government is on target to meet its commitment. However, although we have those additional homes, we have to take into account the fact that the target is a net figure. As it is set out, it clearly refers to an increase in the number of affordable homes. Therefore, we have to take into account the 1,900 homes that have been demolished or sold off. That means that the Assembly Government has increased the number of affordable properties in Wales by only 2,335. You may want to dispute the 300 or 400 of those homes that have been sold to a social housing provider, but that still means that, at the most, there has been an increase of 2,600 or 2,700, which means that the Government is not even half way towards meeting the target that it has set itself.

I thought it important that we have this debate to make that clear. Whenever I attend an event where the Deputy Minister or other members of the Government speak, we are always told that the Government is on track to meet this target and that it will achieve 6,500 additional houses in the housing stock, but that is clearly not the case. It is important, therefore, that the Deputy Minister explains why the Government is not meeting its target, and why it is spinning the original commitment to mean something different from what was originally written and intended, and why it is that the Government is, effectively, pretending to do this when there are other issues that we should be concentrating on to deliver affordable homes.

Targets are targets, and when you talk to people on the street and in communities who need a home, these targets are fairly meaningless to them. I do not want to deal in abstract targets alone, because the need for affordable housing is far more important than that and, given people's individual circumstances, far more poignant. The current economic situation, which, I admit, has had an impact on the Government's delivery of its target, has left many families under the threat of losing their home or having lost their home. Many people are struggling to afford their mortgage and are faced with eviction. I acknowledge the Government's important mortgage rescue scheme. Its scheme has been far more successful than that over the border in England. However, that does not undermine the fact that, in many communities around Wales, people are unable to stay in the community in which they were born and bred because there is a shortage of affordable houses. People cannot get accommodation that they can afford and cannot get on the housing ladder because of the economic situation that we all face.

I say to the Government that I accept that you have put a whole range of measures in place, and I give you credit for that, but there are other issues to deal with and other things that can be done. My colleagues will deal with this in more detail later, but, for example, there are 26,000 empty homes in Wales in the private sector that need to be brought back into use. There are ways of doing that, and having a proper strategy in place would ensure that those homes were brought back into use and could provide people with affordable accommodation.

The Government has done a great deal to try to deal with the issue of affordable housing, but the targets that it has set for itself, and this one in particular, distract it, in my view, from dealing with the real agenda, which is to ensure that we have investment in communities to ensure that people can have an affordable home. In many ways, the target, which is an artificial one, has caused many of the problems for the Government. I hope that the Government can accept that the target that it has set for itself is not being met, and, more importantly, I hope that the Deputy Minister can tell us how she will address that over the next year. If we can get the important draft LCO on affordable housing through, that will help us to tackle this. That is why three of the four parties represented in this Chamber supported the legislation: we recognised that it contains important powers that will help to deal with the situation.