Plaid Cymru and Housing Policy

Although strictly non-partisan, I have been trawling the parties’ housing policies and statements.  In this post, I want to draw attention to a couple of documents published by Plaid Cymru’s lead for the housing portfolio (who I don’t know and have never met), Siân Gwenllian, the MS for Arfon.  The reason why I wanted to do so is because they are remarkably good documents in the sense of being informed, and with pretty clear proposals, which have been written (it appears) by Siân Gwenllian. I lament the lack of the same kind of document by parties in Westminster, although the Labour Housing Group is developing a decent portfolio; but housing policy appears to be developed in a very different way (and, under the last government, out of Tufton Street).  [I have not looked at Welsh Labour documents yet, but I am also a fan of Jayne Bryant (see here), nor Conservative.  For transparency sake, I probably won’t look at Reform’s housing policies (unless others feel they should be considered).]

The two documents, Homes for all: Right to Adequate Housing, Rent Control and Affordability, published in December 2024 (which I missed), and Building a Future: Plaid Cymru’s Vision for Transforming Social Housing Delivery in Wales, published at the back end of March (which I found).  You can access them online.  I have already discussed my views about the right to adequate housing and rent control in previous posts, which put me in a different camp from Plaid; but the case is made elegantly and thoughtfully in the first document, alongside measures which seek to reflect Welsh cultural sensitivities in local housing and local authority settlements.  The idea in the latter is to move away from five yearly broad, regional local housing market assessments towards a more regular community-based and informed assessment of housing need.  They want to introduce a mechanism that prioritises local residents in the housing market “to create a housing system that truly works for communities”.  Ultimately, they would like to create a two tier market – one for local residents and one for the general public, drawing on a model employed in Guernsey.  I’m guessing that this might give rise to devolution issues.

The second document is also interesting, and reflects my own view that social housing should not be regarded simply as a safety net, but as “a cornerstone of a fair and just society” (p 4).  However, it goes on to discuss the issues around the development of that social housing, and solutions to those issues, which have already been discussed on this blog, although emphasising the need for a Welsh Housing Survey (agreed) and for communities’ needs to be reflected in assessments of housing need.  Frustratingly, an understanding of the restrictions affecting the Welsh social housing finance regime is evident, but the failure to refer to the Coastal 1 and 2 issues is (for me) a negative.  Why is nobody talking about it?  They want to push their original vision for Unnos to “… play a strategic role in land assembly and compulsory purchase, working in partnership with local authorities, housing associations, and other partners. It could act as a broker across Welsh Government departments to bring land to market and support residential conversions”.  I like this document, particularly its discussion of additional considerations around addressing the stigma of social housing and moving the focus beyond rural communities to urban sites.

The other thing which bothers me about these documents is what we cannot control in Wales – social security.  How can we have a coherent housing policy when things like the local housing allowance (frozen) and the most recent announcements about PIP affect the everyday lives and housing histories/pathways of households living in Wales?

In short, although there is a lot to discuss in these documents, and (as noted) I don’t agree with some of the approaches and ideas, they demonstrate an engagement which goes beyond the norm in politics in my experience.