7. 3. Statement: The Abolition of the Right to Buy and Associated Rights (Wales) Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:46 pm on 14 March 2017.

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Photo of Carl Sargeant Carl Sargeant Labour 3:46, 14 March 2017

I thank the Member for her contribution and I welcome her party’s commitment to support the Bill process, moving forward. The Member is right about the mix of communities, but we have to remember that 45 per cent of the stock has already been sold and has now gone into the private sector, so it’s very diverse from what it originally started out as in the first place. So, we must plan better in terms of the way we create communities, and that’s part of the planning guidance that is issued. The creation of new social housing, which is being developed by RSLs and local authorities, is, again, about how it satisfies local need, which is important to engage local communities in.

On the Help to Buy—Wales programme, I’m interested in the Member’s comments with regard to the quality of some of the builds. I’ll look at that report carefully. I would not want to be funding any organisation that is providing poor-quality properties. We recently invested up to £20 million in an innovation fund for new housing ideas and concepts, on which we’re having some great responses back. I hope that—alongside this Bill, I said there’s a suite of tools that will help us develop new opportunities, and the innovation programme, alongside the social housing grant will also add to the opportunities that will be given in the housing division.

The one-year period of respite after the introduction—I’m confident of the ability of tenants to act, should they wish to do so, in terms of purchasing, but I would also be mindful of this in terms of our engagement with tenants. So, we will write to all tenants within the two-month period of the Bill receiving Royal Assent. But I think it’s also something that you may want to scrutinise us on about the detail after that event, about making sure that we give confidence to the tenants that if they are seeking to make a significant purchase like that, they are not drawn into the traps of loans sharks and otherwise to make the finances available. It’s something for which we think the 12-month period we believe will be adequate in that space.