Plenary Question to First Minister 9th June
Home Ownership
14:01
Janet Finch-Saunders
4. Will the First Minister make a statement on Welsh Government action to support home ownership in Wales?
14:01
Carwyn Jones The First Minister
We have put in place a number of initiatives to support home ownership, including Help to Buy-Wales and homebuy. Housing associations are also providing a range of low-cost home ownership support. 
14:01
Janet Finch-Saunders
Thank you, First Minister. As of June 2013, and according to figures sourced by the Welsh Conservatives, there were 32,403 empty properties throughout Wales, and, despite your target to bring 5,000 back, ready for the social rented market, by 2016, there are thousands of properties that could be brought back as suitable properties for home ownership. With 84 per cent of adults in Wales aspiring to own their own home within 10 years, what steps are you taking to ensure that local authorities are rising to this challenge, and how confident are you that the 5,000 target will even be met by this time next year?
14:02
Carwyn Jones The First Minister
We are confident. We know that local authorities have taken advantage of a scheme to refurbish properties that have been out of use for some time. I’ve seen it with my own eyes; I saw it, for example, in Burry Port some months ago where Carmarthenshire County Council had done just that, and somebody was living in that house. We know, of course, that the house building market is more robust than it was, and there is a need—an unmet need—for more private housing. People will want to buy their own homes and that is something, of course, that they are being encouraged to do through Help to Buy-Wales. What we won’t do, of course, is to sell off our social housing stock, therefore creating more homelessness. What is proposed in England—and Sir Bob, Lord Kerslake, he said this quite clearly—is that you sell off your social housing. Apparently, if you sell off one house, it generates enough income to build another three—well, I don’t know how that kind of voodoo economics works, but that is nevertheless what is proposed. It’s the equivalent of trying to solve a problem with the housing shortage by trying to fill up a bath with the plug out. That is not a trap we will fall into in Wales.