1. What progress has the Minister made in working with local authorities to maximise opportunities to decarbonise homes? OQ60521

Under the optimised retrofit programme, local authorities have received around £28 million. ORP supports a test-and-learn approach to decarbonise homes in the most efficient and cost-effective way. The net-zero carbon hwb was recently launched to help local authorities connect with industry players to share learnings and experiences.

Thank you. Twenty-eight million pounds is a lot of money, but I appreciate that it doesn't go that far when you're talking about decarbonising homes. There are now several large windfarms operating in Wales, all generating community benefits, including, Pen y Cymoedd with its 78 turbines, generating a very welcome income for the 188,000 residents who live in that area. What analysis has the Government made of how the relevant local authorities have jumped on this opportunity to help the local community to decarbonise their homes by advising them on the best strategy for their individual properties?

Equally, in the same year, the ECO Flex scheme started, which gave local authorities another source of funding coming from the UK Government. I know that both Bristol, London, and many other English local authorities, have started bidding into the ECO Flex schemes and are, even now, actually having things happen. So, how many local authorities in Wales have used that funding to support local populations to decarbonise their homes? And how can we ensure that local authorities are really being proactive in meeting the target that was originally 2033 for social homes?

Yes, thank you, Jenny. So, we support local authorities to leverage Great Britain-wide capital funding into local communities by rolling out, as you say, the local authority Flex schemes associated with ECO4 and the Great British insulation scheme, which used to be called ECO+. They can publish a joint statement of intent for ECO4 and for the Great British insulation scheme and develop partnerships with both suppliers and installers. So, we’ve been supporting the local authorities to develop the statements and we’re encouraging the regional collaborations where these result in more efficient delivery, because they have to link together with the Welsh Energy Service surveys that we’ve been doing, and you know that we’ve been rolling out our community scheme to look at where energy efficiency is most needed and to try and take the fabric worst-first approach. So, we’ve been trying to make sure that, where they cross borders and stuff, there isn’t an invisible force field because you come to the edge of a local authority area, and that we actually do it as a community scheme where that’s appropriate.

The Nest advice service signposts the Great British insulation scheme and other initiatives, including things like the boiler upgrade scheme and the ECO4, as complementary schemes to Welsh Government-funded, demand-led schemes. So, we’re trying to get the new advice service to strengthen that and lead to a referral arrangement so that people understand that, having had one, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have the other, and you can do a combination one. Householders, owner-occupiers and those in social and private-rented homes can check eligibility and apply directly through the energy suppliers for that.

In terms of Pen y Cymoedd and other windfarms, and the very large community benefits packages that come out of those, those aren’t done through the local authorities, they’re done through community consortia. We’ve been working with the developer industry and I met with RenewableUK Cymru just before Christmas at the Celtic Manor, at their conference there, to discuss what more we could do for the community benefit schemes. There are some restrictions: you cannot use a community benefit scheme to simply reduce an energy bill, for example. That’s not allowed inside the rules. But there is absolutely nothing to stop you using a community benefit scheme to retrofit houses in order to make them more energy efficient. But it is a matter for the local community to come to that conclusion. So, what we’ve been doing is using, through Ynni Cymru and other initiatives, local enablers to get communities to come together to understand what’s possible and what the retrofit might bring and to use the community benefit schemes in those ways. Because all over Wales we have beautifully outfitted village halls and sports teams and all the rest of it—all of which are great things, but they haven’t got the longevity of some of the other schemes. I was very pleased that the developers were very happy and are developing something they call 'the gold-plated service', to put those kinds of initiatives into the community benefit schemes. But they would complement all this other funding—one doesn’t preclude the other.

I refer Members to my declaration of interest in terms of property ownership, and I understand I'm not the only one who should be declaring. As you know, Minister, there are thousands—

You don't need to refer to other people's declarations; just refer to your own, please.

I seem to be the only Member at the moment, though, actually making these declarations.

As you know, Minister, there are thousands of empty properties that could be made into lovely homes. The Leasing Scheme Wales programme provides support to landlords entering the scheme, with additional funding to improve the decarbonisation of those privately rented homes. Now, only 16 local authorities have signed up over the last two financial years, and only 60 grants have been awarded—that's less than three a month. Property owners and, indeed, private landlords have made it very clear to me that they would happily refurb properties into homes and to include the decarbonisation scheme if they were helped by Welsh Government. Will you help to maximise the take-up of Leasing Scheme Wales and other ECO schemes available, and provide more funding as part of your recent increased funding in the budget to homeless prevention? Diolch.

So, we've actually had a couple more authorities join Leasing Scheme Wales very recently. Of course, the very welcome uplift of the local housing allowance in April will really help, because the way that Leasing Scheme Wales works is that we guarantee the local housing amount for rent to the landlord. The landlord then hands over the property to the local authority, or to an RSL locally, and we run it as if it's a social home. It's a minimum of five years; we'd prefer the 10 or 15-year period, though, for obvious reasons. The landlord then gets back a house where they've had an income all the way through that period, but which comes back to them in a better state than when they gave it over. We very much want to encourage people to do that. I will say, Janet, that we have not yet got any indication at all whether the local housing allowance will be uplifted in April for one year or for more years, and that makes a real difference. So, actually, one of the biggest barriers we've got is not understanding whether the LHA will continue to rise with inflation, which would make it a lot more attractive, or whether, actually, it's going to get frozen again. So, that is a bit of a barrier. So, I'm currently working with the UK Government to try and get some clarity on that—there hasn't been, so if you can assist with that, that would be helpful.