We'll move on to the short debate. The short debate this afternoon is being presented by Mabon ap Gwynfor.

And if Members can leave the Chamber quietly—quietly—we've still got one short debate to conduct.

So, Mabon ap Gwynfor.

Thank you very much, Llywydd, and thank you for providing time for this short debate this evening. I want to give a minute of my time to Peredur Owen Griffiths, Huw Irranca-Davies, Mike Hedges, Jane Dodds and Mark Isherwood. 

The Deputy Presiding Officer (David Rees) took the Chair.

Thanks for the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon on the experiences of older Welsh home owners living in homes unfit for human habitation. As chair of the cross-party group for housing, we invited Care and Repair to give a presentation on their report, 'The State of Older People's Housing in Wales', in March. The report sheds light on the thousands of low-income vulnerable older home owners in Wales who are living in homes that are hazardous to their health, with no way of improving their situation. I look forward to hearing the views of the Minister and Members throughout the Senedd on this very important topic, and it’s good to see so many people having put their names forward to contribute, showing cross-party support.

Over 62,000 people turned to Care and Repair for help last year, an increase of 6,000 on the previous year, and with increasingly complex housing and support needs. Supporting older people to stay in their own homes, to live safely and independently, is in the best interests of all of us—for the individual, for the health service, for the social care service, for the housing sector. But, to do that, we must be proactive and we must support older people to live in good-quality homes. Social isolation over the past several years thanks to COVID-19 lockdowns meant that informal support from friends or family or neighbours ceased almost overnight. During this time, deteriorating housing conditions went unnoticed, unchecked and unresolved. Take a service request in north Wales, for an enquiry about a front door from a client with a terminal cancer. When Care and Repair got to the property, they found several other urgent problems, including a leaking toilet directly above the kitchen, which had, in turn, left the suspended wooden floor in the kitchen springy, rotten and structurally unsafe. With the floor at risk of collapse into the cellar below, the agency moved essential items out of the kitchen. No help was available from the insurance or the local council. Unable to leave a client with an unsafe home, Care and Repair arranged temporary props to support the timber beams and make the property safe from collapse. The floor structure repair cost was estimated at around £1,000, raised from hours of applications by Care and Repair to small funding pots to make up the money, leaving none left-over for the original service request.

Many older people simply don’t have enough money to repair their home. We must dispel the myth that older people who live in their own homes are all well-off, are able to afford extensions or garden renovations or anything else. An older person on the basic state pension will receive just £156.20 a week to live on. To reach the minimum income standard researched by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2022, a single pensioner would need to have an income of £17,900 per year. The full state pension provides £9,627 per year, leaving a shortfall of over £8,000; the basic state pension, an even bigger shortfall.

And Wales has the oldest housing stock in western Europe. Around one in five homes have a category 1 hazard present. Older people can’t afford to keep their homes free from hazards, and these additional pressures are falling at the door of organisations like Care and Repair. The number of privately funded works Care and Repair completed last year was down by 11 per cent to just over 1,300, whereas the number of charitable works completed increased by 130 per cent. This points to fewer older people being able to afford work independently, and more needing financial support. Obviously, benefits are a reserved matter, so it's even more important that the Welsh Government steps in and does what it can to support older people.

Care and Repair regularly see clients having no choice but to turn their heating off. A case, for instance, this year from June in Bridgend of an 85-year-old man with dementia living with his son, who himself has a heart condition, shows how devastating the impact of this can be. The family are risk of neglecting their daily needs due to not having access to hot running water, to central heating and gas to use the oven. The property has electrics to only half of the house and, due to no central heating and a broken boiler, the water runs cold, leaving the individual and his son to boil the kettle every time he or his father needs to access hot water. Due to the roof needing repairs, rain ingresses into different rooms in the house. This has caused large amounts of damage to walls, electrics and furniture, and there is mould and damp throughout the property. The toilet is located upstairs. However, due to a lack of funds to make repairs to the structure of the property, it's unsafe to use the stairs. As Mr Williams is without adequate heating, his son ensured last winter his father had additional blankets and the three small electric heaters needed during the cold winter months. His son went without to ensure his father had warmth.

Some of the poorest housing conditions are found in the owner-occupied stock. Home owners don't have the same support policy that the Welsh housing quality standard provides for social homes, or the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 provides for private tenants, for example, to ensure that they're not living in hazardous conditions or without risks to their health. They're simply left to fend for themselves and look after themselves, which, for many older people, becomes increasingly challenging with age.

What we need, I think, is to really look at what we can do to support low-income home owners with urgent repairs, and Care and Repair, as a trusted partner, would be well placed to provide this efficiently while they're tackling other issues, such as adaptations and energy efficiency. So, I'd like to hear the Minister's thoughts on establishing a safety-net grant that low-income home owners can access to allow them to make essential repairs to their homes so that they can live in safety, comfort and with dignity. We don't want to see a situation where homes are left to crumble around them, risking their health and also the longevity and lifespan of their home for future generations. Diolch.

Thank you to Mabon for the opportunity to contribute to this debate.

I'm grateful to be speaking about this and to bring to light a hidden issue. As Mabon rightly said, this is an issue where people in need to seem to be falling through the cracks, affecting their health and adding to increasing demand and pressure on our NHS. The impact of poor housing on health and physical health is one thing, but it's on the well-being, the confidence, the mental health of an older person that makes it so tragic. Imagine living with cancer and having to wash in the sink because your stairs are in such a poor condition that you're frightened of going upstairs, or using battery-powered fairy lights to light the room because your electrics are faulty and are an electrical hazard, or your floor threatening to cave in but the insurance company won't help you. These are examples from older people in Wales, and it can't be right that anyone is forced to live in that way in 2023. Minister, what solutions can the Welsh Government put in place to support those that have no other recourse? Diolch.

Thank you very much, Mabon, for giving me a minute of your time here today. I've spoken about the work of Care and Repair in this Chamber many times before, and I'm glad to do so again today in relation to Bridgend County Care and Repair. They received over 9,000 service requests last year, Minister. They completed over 8,000 works in people's homes to improve their condition and accessibility, and the value of that work came in at just over £2.3 million. In my Constituency, as I've said here before, Bridgend Care and Repair is so effective in supporting the Princess of Wales Hospital with patient flow. It saved over 7,300 bed days last year, tackling housing and environmental issues that were preventing hospital discharge. But this serious issue of disrepair of older people's homes on low incomes doesn't seem to be going away, and, if anything, we can see it's getting worse. So, Minister, what support can we give to individuals, but also to organisations like Care and Repair, to fill those gaps in provision that are so evident at the moment? Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Thank you, again, Mabon, for giving me a minute in this debate. There are one-point-two million pensioners living in poverty. When the choice is between eating, heating or house repairs, is there any wonder house repairs lose out? Many older house owners live in older properties, which, as we know, cost more to repair and maintain. As the value of personal pensions fail to keep up with inflation, the repairs get postponed. We also know that cold and damp houses make health conditions worse. We also know that people in houses in poor repair are more likely to have accidents, and older people are more prone to hypothermia. Like Mabon ap Gwynfor, I would like to compliment Care and Repair for the work they do helping vulnerable older householders keep their property in good repair. No-one should have to live in a property unfit for human habitation. It's up to us to stop this happening.

Thank you to Mabon.

A number of people in my region, particularly, live in older properties, and rural areas have far more older properties that are poorly insulated, and have poor repair. Wales has the oldest housing stock in western Europe, which is more susceptible to the effects of the climate crisis and poverty, both of which I see in my region.

Not only that, but for older home owners, getting the support they need locally is a huge challenge, not only in terms of the location, because of the rurality, but the effects of a skills gap as well. Older people usually have a fixed income, which is unlikely to increase, so they have diminishing financial resources in order to make those repairs. Just finishing, older people in rural communities feel that they have been left. We need to make sure that they feel safe, supported and able to continue living in the place they call home, wherever in Wales they are and for however long they choose. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Diolch, Mabon, for the opportunity to speak on this again. The report published by Care and Repair tells us that four in five of their clients identify as disabled. North-east Wales Care and Repair have shared a case study of a Wrexham client living with Korsakoff dementia and other complex health conditions, who contacted them about a roof leak. However, the roof needed full replacement. Mr Jones's wife is a full-time carer; neither are able to work. There are no current or planned home repair grants available in Wrexham or nationally. Although the Care and Repair caseworker is applying for small funding pots, this would not be enough. The mould is increasing, affecting the breathing of both Mrs Jones and Mr Jones, who has fits that reduce his breathing.

The effects of disrepair are having a disproportionate impact on disabled people and those with health conditions less able to pay for their necessary repairs, or identify them as a hazard. We must ensure that disabled people are living in homes fit for both human habitation and individual needs.

I call on the Deputy Minister for Climate Change, Lee Waters.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I thank all Members who have contributed, and Mabon ap Gwynfor for bringing this forward to the Senedd to debate this important topic, because the safety, the dignity, and independence of old people in their own homes is a matter of huge importance to all of us here, as we've just heard. And I'd like to take this opportunity to join others in thanking and highlighting the work of Care and Repair and for their report on the state of older people's housing in Wales, and their exceptional work across the country. They completed over 30,000 adaptations in the year 2021-22, with funding from the Welsh Government, and as home improvement agencies, they also do healthy home checks which give housing advice and maximise older people's benefits, crucially.

We've increased the core revenue grant for Care and Repair by 18 per cent over the last two years, recognising their vital work, and it now stands at just over £5 million, and their capital grant increased by 83 per cent to £3 million. We also provide capital funding for adaptations to local authorities through the local government settlement, and our £6 million ENABLE grant scheme, and of course, we are funding housing associations to provide physical adaptations grants of £12 million a year.

Now, last week, my colleague, the Minister for Climate Change, set out our plans for the next phase of the Warm Homes programme. And that will balance the two objectives of tackling Fuel Poverty and reducing the climate impacts of our housing stock. All households in Wales will have access to the Warm Homes programme for advice and support. And in relation to practical measures, we are focused on households that are least able to pay for improvements in the owner-occupier, private rented and housing co-operative sectors. And, addressing a point that Mabon ap Gwynfor made, we will set a low-income threshold, rather than basing eligibility solely on means-tested benefits. This will makes sure that we target the poorest in society.

In terms of eligible homes, we will treat dwellings with an energy performance certificate rating of E and below. This will be extended to EPC D for households where there are people with a recognised health condition, such as chronic respiratory, circulatory or mental health conditions. This means that our help will target older people on low incomes who live in housing that is in poor condition—the very same people identified in the Care and Repair report.

We are taking other measures as well, for example, the optimised retrofit programme and the Welsh housing quality standard, both referenced already, to drive up energy efficiency in social housing. And in relation to the private rented sector, Part 4 of the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, which came into force in December, sets out the obligations on a landlord to ensure that rented properties are in good repair and fit for human habitation. 

So, taken together, Dirprwy Lywydd, these measures demonstrate the wide range of actions that the Welsh Government is taking to improve the quality, energy efficiency and safety of homes in Wales so that older people in Wales can live with dignity and independence in their own homes. Diolch. 

Thank you, all. Before I conclude business for today—

I did take a point of order earlier today. I have reviewed the transcript. I have had a discussion with the Member who raised the point of order. I haven't yet had a discussion with the two other Members identified in the point of order, so, I do not intend to make any further comments today, but I will write to both of them so that it's clear on the record.

And that brings today's proceedings to a close.

The meeting ended at 19:37.