The responses from stakeholders, including Shelter Cymru, local authorities and housing associations, show clear support for the aims of the Bill. The Bill will protect the social housing stock for rent by people who are unable to buy or rent a home via the private market. This includes many vulnerable people who benefit greatly from the safe, secure and affordable homes that our social housing provides. In summary, the Bill will abolish the right to buy, the preserved right to buy and the right to acquire for social housing tenants. The rights will end for new homes not previously let in the social housing sector two months after the Bill receives Royal Assent. To ensure that tenants are aware of the effect of the Bill, abolition of rights on existing properties will not take place until at least one year after the Bill receives Royal Assent. All affected tenants of social housing will be informed in writing within two months of Royal Assent, and the Bill complements the Welsh Government’s wider aims of a more prosperous and fairer Wales. It will assist in tackling poverty and it will help to preserve a stock of safe, secure and affordable housing for use by people on modest incomes or who are vulnerable.

The legislation to abolish the right to buy and right to acquire supports other action being taken by the Welsh Government to increase the supply of housing—for example, setting the ambitious target of 20,000 affordable homes during this term of Government. The Welsh Government remains committed to helping people on modest incomes to own their own homes too, for example via the Help to Buy—Wales scheme. Help to Buy—Wales is now firmly established, and our £290 million investment in the second phase will support the construction of over 6,000 new homes by 2021.This has been widely welcomed also by aspiring homeowners and housebuilders alike.

We are strengthening schemes that support low-cost home ownership, but not at the expense of reducing the social housing stock, and not via schemes that, in the long-run, can end up costing tenants, and all of us, more than the social rented alternative. There is evidence that many properties sold under the right to buy eventually end up in the private sector. When that happens, that can involve higher costs for tenants, and where housing benefit is claimed, that can cost more to the public purse. I recognise that some people will oppose the Bill, pointing to the contribution the right to buy has made in assisting tenants to get home ownership. But we need to consider those apparent benefits in the context of the housing system as a whole. I am concerned to encourage as many people as possible into home ownership also. This Bill ensures we safeguard the investment made in social housing over many generations so that it can be used to support the most vulnerable families now and in the future.

Llywydd, our manifesto commitment to end the right to buy will contribute to a fairer Wales by helping those for whom the housing market doesn’t work. The Bill will help make a real difference to many people’s lives. I look forward to the wider debate surrounding this Bill and I look forward to the contribution of Members and the many stakeholder groups who I know want to see this Bill become law.