Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Welcome, everyone, to this meeting of the Local Government and Housing Committee, our last meeting of this sixth Senedd. Welcome very much to all our members. Perhaps I might begin by just thanking all of our committee members for their contributions during this sixth Senedd—our current members and our previous members from the beginning of this sixth Senedd—for all the work that they've done to enable us to carry out our duties of scrutiny, policy development, reporting and recommending to Welsh Government.

I also thank our committee team. All of us as members of the committee are very, very conscious that so much of the work is done behind the scenes by our committee team: our clerks, researchers and public engagement staff. Without that work, the committee would simply not be able to function. So, thanks very much to all our hard-working committee staff.

And thanks, of course, to all the stakeholders and individuals who've engaged with committee, because, again, our work just wouldn't be possible if we didn't have that input from the people of Wales and organisations within Wales. So, we're extremely grateful for that engagement with the committee as well.

Okay, having said and put that on the record, which I think is very important to do, let me just say that we haven't received any apologies from committee members for this meeting. It will be held in a hybrid format as usual. And as usual, the public items will be broadcast live on Senedd.tv and a Record of Proceedings published as usual. The meeting, of course, is bilingual with simultaneous translation available. Are there any declarations of interest from committee members?

No, but can I say something?

Absolutely, Siân, please.

Can I just, on behalf of the committee members, thank you, John, as the Chair of the committee, not just in this Senedd, but in previous Seneddau as well? I think your leadership, especially in the housing area, has been fantastic. You have influenced the way that policy has developed with housing in particular in Wales, I think. So, on behalf of us all, I think, diolch yn fawr iawn.

Diolch yn fawr iawn. Diolch.

Our second item, then, on our agenda today is item 2, papers to note. Paper 1 is correspondence between the committee and the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government in relation to the follow-up inquiry that we've done on social housing supply. We'll have an opportunity to discuss the response from Welsh Government later on during the committee's private session. Paper 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales to the Equality and Social Justice Committee in relation to the Armed Forces Bill 2026 legislative consent memorandum. Paper 3 is our response to the UK Parliament's Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee regarding the draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill. Papers 4 to 6 are letters from Crisis, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Homes for All Cymru in relation to our legacy work, and we'll be coming on to the committee's legacy report later. Paper 7 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government in relation to community assets. And papers 8 and 9 are letters from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government and Shelter Cymru in relation to hazardous disrepair in social housing—again, a matter that we'll return to later. Are Members content to note those papers? I see that you are. Thank you very much.

Item 3, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting. Are committee members content? Yes, I see that you are. We will, then, move to private session.