1. How is the Government supporting home owners in South Wales East who are facing increased mortgage payments? OQ59749

Llywydd, we're doing everything we can to support people through this cost-of-living crisis by providing targeted help to those who need it the most. Forty million pounds has been allocated to bring forward schemes to support people in mortgage difficulty at an early stage to enable them to stay in their own homes.

Diolch, Prif Weinidog. It's good to hear that those plans are progressing, because many, many households are in a desperate situation. One of my constituents showed me his mortgage statement, which shows that, on 30 November this year, their current payment, which is £617.81, will rise to £932.96. If there are more interest rate rises in the meantime, that monthly payment might well increase again. They do not know where they will find that extra money. Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak is asking people to 'hold their nerve'. That's easy to say when you've got an estimated family wealth of £529 million. The mortgage rescue scheme is something that Plaid Cymru's Jocelyn Davies developed to great effect during the One Wales Government. As part of the suite of plans to protect home owners, will you consider a rent freeze in the private housing market to protect tenants who will also suffer unless action is taken? The SNP Government has passed legislation that has protected tenants. Tenants in Wales deserve the same security, First Minister. 

Well, Llywydd, thank you to Peredur Owen Griffiths for that set of questions. I agree with him, of course, that so many households in Wales are faced with rising mortgage Bills, where they do not know how they will manage with the rises already announced, and do not know what further rises will come in future. The schemes that the Welsh Government is devising with that £40 million will travel under the broad banner of Help to Stay. So, they are aimed at early stage mortgage difficulties, where it's possible to take action that will allow people to remain in their own homes. The scheme to which the Member referred from the One Wales Government has never closed; it's been open over the whole of the period since. Of course, for a long period, with mortgage rates very low, the take-up of it was very modest. But it remains there, and it remains an option for local authorities particularly to help people much further down the mortgage difficulties path. 

As to a rent freeze, it's a blunt instrument; it has many unintended consequences. We know in Scotland that it has led to a reduction in properties available for rent, because people who have bought properties on a buy-to-let basis themselves face mortgages that have now gone up significantly. The Bank of England estimates that it will take a 20 per cent rise in private sector rents simply to cover the additional costs that buy-to-let landlords now incur. Even the Scottish scheme is not a rent freeze for everybody; it is a rent freeze for some people, in some circumstances. In Wales, we believe there are other measures, and less blunt instruments, that allow us to respond to the people who are in exactly the difficulties that the Member described.

First Minister, I'd like to begin with a quote:

'There is no answer to the mortgage crisis without building more homes'.

Those aren't my words, First Minister, but the words of Labour MP, Lisa Nandy, in an interview this weekend. These are incredibly uncertain and worrying times for home owners, and I was pleased to see the UK Government reveal a series of measures to help residents only last week. However, for many people in Wales, the thought of owning their own home is nothing more than a far-flung dream, and that's due to the Welsh Government here overseeing a major housing crisis, and, unfortunately, not doing very much to fix it. The Government is barely building 6,000 homes a year, First Minister, when, in fact, we need around 12,000. We have some 90,000 people here languishing on social housing waiting lists, and we've got more than 10,000 people living in temporary accommodation. Two councils in Wales had households on social housing waiting lists for more than 17 years. That's shocking, First Minister. Most people can see that the key to solving a lot of problems is to, in fact, build more homes. So, First Minister, do you agree with Lisa Nandy that there is no fix to this mortgage crisis without actually building new homes? And if so, given Labour is in power here, and has been for 25 years, when can we see the Government stop shirking responsibility and take action—[Interruption.]—into this?

We need to have some quiet so that the First Minister can hear the question. The noise was coming from your own back benches, by the way, just in case you need to know that, First Minister. [Laughter.]

I could hear. Llywydd, well, of course, Lisa Nandy was right that building more homes has to be part of the solution to people who don't have homes at the moment. She will have been replying to the retreat of the UK Government from the plans that the Conservative Party had announced earlier in this Parliament—the abandonment under the pressure of Conservative backbenchers that has meant that Michael Gove has had to throw away the plans that he had to build more homes in England. That is the point that Lisa Nandy was making.

Here in Wales, we remain committed to 20,000 new homes for social rent, built to the highest possible standards. While mortgage rates continue to go up under the stewardship of the UK Conservative Government, then of course house builders are not going to be encouraged to build more homes. That is what house builders are telling us. As the cost of borrowing rises, it rises for them, it rises for businesses. We've heard already this afternoon the effect on home owners and people who look to rent their homes. But it's not just that, is it? It's people who run businesses, including house building businesses as well, who now find their Bills going up, and the ability of ordinary people to afford houses that are being built goes down. So, this is not simply a matter of building more homes, desirable as that is; it's a matter of the affordability of those homes as well. And that is why the rate rises that we have seen in recent months are having such a choking impact on household budgets and the ability of markets to supply basic needs.

Of course, Lisa Nandy, you, First Minister, and I and everybody in this Chamber knows that this isn't an interest rate crisis; it's a Tory interest rate crisis, created as a consequence of a hard Brexit and economic mismanagement. We all saw—[Interruption.] You can shout as much as you like. We all saw the way that Liz Truss crashed the economy. It's not Liz Truss who is now suffering the consequences of it; it's people that we all represent here, home owners and renters alike. And the Member for London can cry as many crocodile tears as she likes about the situation facing home owners. First Minister, do you agree with me that the Tory economic mismanagement has failed home owners, has failed renters, has failed us all, and the best thing we need is a Labour Government able to rebuild this economy?

Llywydd, of course Alun Davies articulates the most important solution to the difficulties that ordinary people in Wales face. This is a crisis made in Downing Street, by successive occupants of 10 Downing Street. I've listened in the last week to UK Conservative Ministers tell us that austerity was a very fine thing because it prepared us better for coronavirus. I've heard Tory Ministers say that we were lucky to have the crisis of Brexit because the crisis of Brexit meant that we were better prepared for the crisis of COVID. [Interruption.] That is what Oliver Dowden—[Interruption.] That is what Oliver Dowden said; he said it not just once, he said it time after time again. In fact, what he said was that the disaster of Brexit—the disaster of Brexit—meant that we were better placed for the disaster of coronavirus. And now they want to say the same thing again—that their disastrous record somehow entitles them to an opportunity to put that disaster right. It's writ large in the lives of people facing mortgage interest rate rises. Those people know where the responsibility lies. They know where the blame lies too, and that's why we'll have that next Labour Government.