Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:25 pm on 21 March 2017.
The Member raises some interesting points. I think the Member should engage in the consultation exercise on behalf of his party if that’s what he wishes to do. I have met with the park home residents and park home site owners in the past and it is unfortunate that I—as Cabinet Secretaries and Ministers we get lots of requests by individuals to meet them; we just physically can’t do that because of diary commitments. But what I am committed to doing during the 12-week consultation—and prior to that, my team are already planning to meet with stakeholders, so, the residents’ association groups, with the park home site owners’ representative bodies, and we will do that through an open and transparent process. I have many letters from many Members: Lesley Griffiths, Jane Hutt, and many others who have written to me; Kirsty Williams writes to me every other week on park home issues. I have made a commitment to look at this in detail and make a decision this year about what we will do and whether we need to legislate or not or whether we remove or maintain those commission rates. But it is, as the Member quite rightly said, within the gift now of the park home site owners to show to me that their businesses would become unviable if we removed or made alterations to the commission rates.