3. How is the Welsh Government supporting individuals facing homelessness in South Wales Central? OQ60591

The Welsh Government remains committed to our long-term ambition to end homelessness. This year alone, more than £210 million has been invested in homelessness prevention. This funding has been safeguarded for 2024-25, despite the challenging fiscal situation. This includes over £45 million for authorities in South Wales Central. 

Thank you, First Minister. Over the past month, it has become apparent that the former Toys 'R' Us building in Cardiff Bay is being used as temporary accommodation for individuals waiting for homes. Of course, emergency shelter is needed immediately for anyone who is facing homelessness, but the conditions in which vulnerable people are being housed are very concerning to me and concerning to a number of staff who are supporting service users.

Bearing in mind these concerns regarding the health and safety of service users and staff in such facilities, I'd like to ask whether you believe that housing vulnerable individuals in such buildings is an appropriate and sustainable solution to tackling the homelessness crisis here in the capital and in Wales. What proactive steps do you, as a Government, intend to take to ensure the welfare and safety of those who are housed in temporary accommodation? 

As Cardiff Council itself has said, its decision to use Toys 'R' Us was a decision made under the huge pressure that the city is facing. In the run-up to Christmas, Cardiff becomes a magnet for people who come to the city, who find that they have nowhere to live, and turn to the local authority to assist them. At the same time, Cardiff, above any other part of Wales, is dealing with the consequences of the Home Office's decision to speed up decision making in the asylum system—a good thing in itself, but with many, many people being ejected from the accommodation that they previously were able to enjoy, with nowhere to go, but to the homelessness services of the local authority. Those two things came together before Christmas in a way that was incredibly difficult for the local authority to find a way to respond. It has used the Toys 'R' Us site. It says that it will have stopped using that site in April of this year because it has other more suitable accommodation coming on stream. In the meantime, it has done whatever it can to make people in that temporary and unsatisfactory set of circumstances as safe as they can be.

In terms of what the Welsh Government is doing, the period between April and October last year saw the highest number of presentations of people who are homeless than in any of the previous three years. But it also saw the highest number of people moved on from temporary accommodation to permanent accommodation here in Wales. So, while the demand is growing all the time, the efforts of the Welsh Government, with our partners in local authorities who I think have done a fantastic job in this area, mean that more people than before are still being moved on into better and long-term accommodation. We will continue to do that with the investment that our draft budget sets out, but nobody should be under any doubt that this is a system under enormous pressure, and those pressures devolved on to Cardiff in particular in those weeks leading up to Christmas.

First Minister, as you may be well aware, the combined homelessness and information network, CHAIN, commissioned and funded by the Greater London Authority, is a database of information recording people seen rough-sleeping by outreach teams in London. Services that record information on CHAIN include outreach teams, accommodation projects, day centres and specialist projects, such as the commissioned No Second Night Out project. The real benefits of the network are that it is updated every day and provides a far more detailed understanding of rough-sleeping in a particular area, compared to the national count. It also captures far more detail about an individual's situation, such as how long they have been sleeping rough, and it helps agencies such as the Salvation Army, who do such an incredible job of helping homeless people, with any support needs that they have. With this in mind, First Minister, will you consider introducing a comprehensive multi-agency database, along the lines of the CHAIN system operating in London, in Wales in order to improve the planning and delivery of services for people experiencing street homelessness? Thank you.

Llywydd, I'm aware of the CHAIN system and it does, undoubtedly, have many merits in a city the size and scale of London, but I don't believe that the difficulty faced in homelessness services in Wales is one of a lack of information. We have monthly reports from all our local authorities about the number of people who are street homeless; they are directly in touch with all of them on a very, very regular basis. What our system lacks is the funding necessary to be able to respond to people who find themselves in that situation. It's not a deficit of information, Llywydd, it is the challenge of responding to a problem that has been growing every year since the COVID pandemic.