The first group of amendments relates to the removal of the existing suspension of the right to buy. Amendment 5 is the lead amendment in this group. I call on David Melding to move and speak to the lead amendment and the other amendments in the group. David Melding.  

Amendment 5 (David Melding) moved.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. And I move amendment 5. Before I speak to amendment 5, can I just say a few words about Carl Sargeant, who was, of course, the Cabinet Secretary at Stages 1 and 2 of this Bill? I have to say, after concluding Stage 2, in which there were many very serious debates around issues of principle, I never for a moment thought that I would be in this position of having to push at Stage 3 my amendments and have a different person respond. 

I found Carl throughout the debate courteous, fair and formidable, it has to be said. And there weren't many responses made in terms of conceding to what we were calling for at Stage 2, but I'm sure he would've expected me to have made the full argument here in Plenary for genuine points of principle where we disagree, but, in respect of this Bill, where we believe it would improve the Bill, given that the Assembly is now minded to have some form of abolition. 

So, then, if I may move, Llywydd, to the purpose of amendment 5, which is to remove the suspensions of the right to buy and associated rights in the areas that are currently designated as suspended under the Housing (Wales) Measure 2011. Currently, they are Cardiff, Anglesey, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Flintshire and Denbighshire. This will allow qualifying tenants in those areas to exercise their rights like any other qualifying tenants across Wales, up until the abolition comes into effect. 

Amendments 14, 9, 11, 1 and 3 are consequential amendments that are required to make the lead amendment effective. 

Llywydd, I've submitted amendment 5 because of how unfair I believe the Abolition of the Right to Buy and Associated Rights (Wales) Bill would be if it were implemented as it currently stands. If the Government is intent on completely removing the right to utilise the right to buy for those tenants in the six suspended authorities, whilst extending a grace period to tenants in the remaining 16 authorities, then effectively the Government would be creating two categories of tenants on this fundamental matter. There could be, in my view, serious human rights implications on this issue, and I don't think the Government has adequately yet responded to these concerns at any stage of consideration so far.

During the Stage 1 evidence sessions of the committee, we saw how much of an issue this was. Some of the contributors highlighted that, in areas where a suspension was currently in place, not allowing tenants the opportunity to purchase their home prior to abolition could be seen as unfair. I think this point was impressed on all members of the committee, even if they didn't move their position ultimately. The evidence was strong.

During the evidence sessions, the representatives of the City and County of Swansea stated that they had already experienced tenants who were voicing complaints over the unfairness of not being given the opportunity to buy their homes before abolition comes into effect. Other respondents, including Shelter Cymru, stressed that more consideration should be given to this issue of equity.

The Welsh Government has conceded that representations have been received from individual tenants, and I know we all can appreciate that because we've received many responses as well from concerned constituents. Indeed, the Cabinet Secretary, when he replied to this amendment at Stage 2, conceded the point and said that he understood the reasoning behind these amendments in respect of making representations of individuals.

I believe that this amendment is vital if we are to be fair to all tenants across Wales, in offering them one last opportunity to purchase their home, and I hope that the Chamber bears this in mind when considering this amendment. I so move.

Thank you, Llywydd. I want to speak to the amendments, but I also want to outline Plaid Cymru's stance on the Bill. Plaid Cymru has opposed the right to buy for some time, with our members supporting the abolition of the right to buy in motions to Plaid conferences over a period of decades, from the time when the policy was implemented first of all by the Conservative Government. And when we were part of the One Wales coalition, we attempted to implement this policy in accordance with the wishes of our members by trying to secure the legislative powers to do that. Since then, local authorities have been allowed to make an application to suspend the right to buy, and indeed some did that. Authorities controlled by Plaid and some controlled by other parties have taken advantage of this in order to protect their housing stock and to protect the investment made in that housing stock. So, clearly, we will be supporting this Bill today. Indeed, we have participated fully in the scrutiny process, and we believe that this has led to a stronger Bill as a result of that. We've worked with Government on amendments 15 and 16, and we therefore hope that those will be passed today.

In accordance with this stance, we'll be voting in favour of the Bill and against the Conservative amendments, which, in our view, would dilute the policy intentions of the Bill. But I believe it's also fair to say that, although this legislation will be a positive step towards protecting the housing stock, in and of itself it won't be sufficient in many ways. This legislation comes too late to protect the housing stock that's already been lost. We know that there is a huge deficit in terms of social housing, with waiting lists remaining terribly long. Since 1980, only 60,000 new homes were built in the local authority sector or social housing sector. There are 90,000 people on the waiting list at present. Over the past five years, we have built, on average, 950 new homes in the social housing sector under this Government. At this rate, it will take 95 years to build enough homes to tackle the waiting list without anticipating a net change in demand, and that clearly is too long.

And, yes, it’s true that some of those people in social housing may now want to become home owners themselves, but a combination of low wages, uncertainty in terms of unemployment and high housing prices are a barrier, and therefore we need to build more social housing and to provide far greater support for people to become home owners themselves, by support for first-time buyers, for example.

There are some programmes already in the pipeline. There is one being undertaken in my area where you pay a medium rent on your social property and then you have a choice as to whether you purchase that home, but if you then move on to sell that property, you would have to sell it on to people living locally. Means such as this could be important tools in supporting home ownership in areas where average house prices are significantly higher than local salaries, and in parts of Gwynedd, that is certainly the case.

So, protecting our investment by passing this legislation is one small step in the right direction in terms of what needs to be done, and I remember Carl Sargeant himself saying at committee stage that this is only a piece of the jigsaw, and that more needs to be done than simply consenting to this Bill today. So, I very much hope that we won’t see this Bill as a full stop.

A word on the Conservative amendments: all of these amendments lift the suspension of the right to buy in areas where it is already in place. We believe that lifting the suspension, even temporarily, would be damaging, and as part of the suspension period, tenants in those designated areas have already had the opportunity to buy while the suspension was going through the process, so we will be voting against the amendments.

First of all, I agree with David Melding's comments about the former Minister, Carl Sargeant. Of course, there were political differences on the committee when the Bill was debated, and there are bound to be political differences, but he was always amicable on a personal level. So, I would like to agree with what David said about Carl.

As a group, UKIP didn't support the abolition of the right to buy. We felt that tenants are only buying their homes in fairly small numbers now, so we didn't feel that abolishing the right to buy would be very significant in terms of aiding the provision of social housing, and it is making it more difficult to achieve the important aspiration of home ownership.

There were various amendments put forward at committee stage by David Melding and by Bethan Jenkins. In Bethan's absence, of course, Siân Gwenllian is speaking to them today. I felt, on the committee, that these were generally helpful amendments that would've improved the legislation and I was disappointed that the Government didn't support any of the amendments at the committee stage. UKIP is happy to support all of the amendments today. Thank you.

Carl Sargeant would've been disappointed had David Melding not put forward this amendment. I'm sure that he respected David's position completely, whilst he did not agree with it. And, what he said at the time was, 'I accept the Member's points regarding the need to build more houses, but while we're building them, we are still haemorrhaging them in terms of the right to buy and that cannot continue.'

So, as a Member for Cardiff, I would be very alarmed at the proposal to delete the suspension of the right to buy in Cardiff. We have over 8,000 people on Cardiff's housing waiting list and this amendment would instantly invite the vultures to descend on Cardiff and start harassing people to exercise, so to speak, their right to buy, give them the deposit money and then move them to accommodation elsewhere, so that the vultures could then use this house, built with public funds, for private profit. So, I cannot support this amendment, and I hope that we will not, as a collective, either.

There's a huge difference between council house rents in Cardiff and average rents in private rented accommodation in Cardiff, which is, unfortunately, way beyond what is affordable for people on low wages, and that is what prompts this inevitable level of exploitation. In my view, social housing in this level of a shortage has to be allocated on the basis of need, not on the basis of income. So, until we have no or negligible numbers on the housing waiting list, I do not think we can afford to let go of the valuable assets of council housing that we have, so I hope that we will defeat this amendment.

I rise to support my colleague David Melding's amendments, particularly amendment 5. I don't agree with the abolition of the right to buy. I know too many people who've had the ability to buy a home, and they would never have had that chance before, but I am prepared to accept that that is a battle lost already, and I understand the ideological opposition to this. But, if you are going to do this, what I simply cannot get my head around is the fact that you're not going to be fair about it, and I do expect any law that we as an Assembly pass here to be fair and equitable to all the members of our society.

I cannot understand why some people, mainly those in the six counties that already have a suspension, are not going to be allowed the opportunity to buy their houses if they wish. I don't think the numbers are, actually, that many, but the point is that we're making two classes of tenants. I did hear the point that Jenny Rathbone made about the vultures descending on Cardiff, but then you could say that the vultures will descend on all the other ones that don't have a suspension currently in place. What I think we're doing is we're being incredibly unfair, and I have had a significant number of people write to me from Carmarthenshire who've been unable to buy their houses and would have liked to have had the chance. They didn't realise that there was a suspension going to happen. When it happened, they assumed that at some point it would stop and they could do it, and they've been much aggrieved by the fact that they're going to be treated differently to people in Pembrokeshire or Ceredigion, and I simply—

Would the Member give way?

Absolutely.

I understand what the Member is saying. There is a fundamental problem with the Conservative position on this. From those benches, there is a constant advocacy of local decision making and local authorities being able to make these decisions for themselves. These six authorities have made their own decisions, have been elected to make those decisions, and have suspended the right to buy in their areas. The legislation doesn't change that, and surely all we're doing is reflecting local decision making.

No, I don't accept that at all—

It was a suspension, not abolition.

A suspension—well, as David's just saying, a suspension is not the same as an abolition, and the people who live in those areas now will know that they have no further chance ever of being able to buy their home. All we're asking is that they are treated the same as the people in Pembrokeshire or the people in Ceredigion, and they have that year of grace. If they buy their house, they buy their house; if they don't buy the house, they don't buy it, and then we go on from that and everybody is treated the same.

But this place always goes on and on and on about equality, and we say that equality is one of the underpinning principles of the Assembly, but, today, we're about to make an unequal bit of law that says, 'If you happen to be a tenant in some of our local authorities, you've got a year to save up the money, get a mortgage and buy your home, but, tell you what, if you live in Carmarthenshire or the other five, tough luck, you've lost your opportunity.' I think that is fundamentally unfair. I'm asking you, Minister, because we are building our business, our parliament under different principles—equality underpins everything we say that we want to do—but this is not fair. If you're going to abolish it, abolish it, but abolish it equally for everybody, and let those six authorities have that extra year's grace for the handful of people who might wish to buy their homes.

The primary reason we have a shortage of social housing is because, without going back over prehistory, the Welsh Governments in the first three Assembly terms took the decision to give it low priority in their funding, and they cut the supply of new social housing over 12 years by over 70 per cent. There were warnings from the sector, from the commercial through to the charitable sector, that this would happen. Each time I, often supported by Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats in those days, put down a motion highlighting the warnings of a Welsh housing crisis, the response from the Welsh Government wasn't to respond to the substantive concerns raised by the housing sector, but it was to put down an amendment removing the term 'Welsh housing crisis'. That was a betrayal. That is the primary reason we're here today.

There's an element of catch-up now, but, sadly, still, the numbers of social homes being provided are massively below levels required. There's some masking going on with the use of the term 'affordable housing', but we know that that includes intermediate rent, low-cost home ownership and anything else that can be added in to help the Welsh Government deliver a target that is still massively below the levels that successive independent reports have told us we need. We know, from independent research, that the average council house tenant resident in their home today will stay in that home for another 15 years. So, the impact on increasing supply for people on waiting lists, or people in housing crisis, will be negligible. But since 2010 in England, and since 2010 with devolved powers to Welsh Ministers, there's the opportunity to use the proceeds to build new social houses—council houses—and take some people off the housing waiting list, which this proposal will not achieve. With David Melding's amendments, at least some money could be realised to build some new social housing and take some people off the housing waiting lists in volumes that the alternative you're proposing couldn't even dream to achieve. You are biting off your nose to spite your face. It's poor housing economics, and, unfortunately, it's simply adding to the betrayal over housing in the previous terms of this Assembly.

I call on the Minister for Housing and Regeneration, Rebecca Evans.

Thank you. I would like, at the start of my contribution, to acknowledge and pay tribute to Carl Sargeant for his leadership in introducing this Bill, and for his commitment and his hard work in seeing it through Stages 1 and 2. I'd also like to thank Assembly Members and, in particular, committee members, for their constructive scrutiny of the Bill during Stage 1 and Stage 2 proceedings, and for the support the Bill has had so far in its passage through the Assembly.

This Bill forms a key part of the Government’s housing policy. Ending the right to buy and the right to acquire will protect our social housing for those in need and give local authorities and housing associations the confidence to invest in new developments to help meet the need for quality, affordable housing in Wales. The right to buy has been a feature of social housing for many years in Wales, and this has resulted in the loss of a significant number of homes—more than 139,000 between 1981 and 2016—from the social housing stock. In recent years, although sales of social housing have slowed, social housing stock is still being lost at a time of considerable housing supply pressure. Recognising the impact of homes lost through the right to buy and the continued pressure on social housing, the previous Welsh Government introduced the Housing (Wales) Measure 2011. This enables a local authority to apply to suspend the right to buy and the right to acquire in its area. Currently, as we've heard, six local authorities have suspended the right to buy.

Amendment 5 seeks to lift right-to-buy suspensions and prevent any further applications for suspension being submitted. Proposing to lift suspensions ignores the fact that local authorities have demonstrated evidence of significant housing pressure and have proposed and taken action to address the pressure during the suspension period. Suspensions have been approved where evidence shows a substantial imbalance between the demand for social housing and its supply. To lift the suspensions would only exacerbate that imbalance and undermine the purpose of the Measure and the actions of the third Assembly in passing the Measure in 2011.

In suspended areas, existing tenants of social housing still have security of tenure and affordable rents. They also benefit from the investment by landlords to bring all social housing up to the Welsh housing quality standard, and this is in contrast to those who cannot access social housing.

For those who aspire to low-cost home ownership, this Government is committed to supporting them, but not at the expense of reducing the social housing stock. There are other home ownership schemes available, such as Help to Buy—Wales and homebuy. We're also developing a new rent-to-own scheme, which offers a route to home ownership for those who do not have a deposit saved, but can afford a market rent.

Where suspensions are in place, social housing landlords are reassured that investment in new social housing is a long-term investment. Developments are proposed, for example, in Carmarthenshire, Swansea and Flintshire. Lifting the suspensions would undermine the efforts of local authorities to manage their housing stock in the face of increased pressure. It would also undermine our core aim of protecting social housing for the long-term benefit of the most vulnerable people in society. I therefore urge Members to reject amendment 5 and all the related amendments.

I call on David Melding to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Llywydd. I’m grateful to Members who have taken part in the debate around amendment 5. I’m very frustrated, naturally, that this whole issue of equality and equity has been dodged. Let me just reiterate why that causes us real concern on this side of the Chamber. When tenants were consulted on the suspension in those authorities, they took comfort in the thought that the suspension would be temporary, not permanent. Suspending a right is not the same as abolishing that right. That is the difference, and I think it’s only fair that people realise what they're going to vote on. Obviously, this Assembly can take that decision, but my duty is to ensure that this is on the record and everyone clearly understands what they're doing in terms of creating two classes of tenants between now and the eventual abolition of this right.

TPAS Cymru, the tenants' organisation, told the committee that some tenants living in areas where a suspension is in place are under the impression that it would have to be lifted at some point in time, when they could have then exercised their right if they wanted to. They also said, and I quote, when the right to buy was suspended in those areas:

'The abolition discussion wasn’t there then. So...in terms of fairness and consistency across Wales, some consideration should be given to that 12-month period applying equally to tenants.'

I think this answers, for instance, Simon’s point that somehow they've already had this debate. They had a debate about suspension without any right, once that decision was taken, for a grace period in which they could then exercise their embedded rights. So, these statutes are not the same. The Measure is very different from the Bill in front of us.

Ultimately, Llywydd, the purpose of the suspension Measure was to suspend the right to buy for five years, and not to abolish the right completely—simple as that. As stated by Mr Clarke, an adviser to Welsh Tenants, there are tenants who accepted the suspension principle who are now anticipating that, in five years' time, they will have an opportunity to exercise their right to buy their home. Well, of course, they are going to get disabused of that at some point. And I fear, when that happens, we will have many more letters sent to us, on top of the ones we have already received, from tenants who are very unhappy about this different way of treating tenants in different parts of Wales.

Can I just reply to some of the general remarks that were made, because I think some Members have taken the opportunity in the first grouping to look at some more general issues? I’m obviously sorry that Siân Gwenllian and the Plaid group will not be supporting the amendment, but I think they're right to say that the real problem here is a lack of supply. We need to build more homes, and we need to build more social homes in particular. I appreciate what Gareth Bennett said, and that’s helpful. It has certainly been our intention on this side of the Chamber to improve the legislation in front of us. We cannot stop the abolition. I think that's quite clearly going to happen because the principle has already been accepted, and, of course, amendments are not permitted if they wreck the principle of legislation; the Llywydd would not permit that. So, I do believe that all the amendments I am laying this afternoon could be passed by people who firmly believe that abolition is very, very important.

Jenny said that it’s still the case that social homes are haemorrhaging—she used the word 'haemorrhaging’—and that had to be addressed with the supply issue. Well, I think we need to have a sense of magnitude here. There are barely 300 or 400 sales under right to buy and associated rights at the moment each year. We are hoping to build between 4,000 and 5,000 social homes, and I think that, over the next 10 years, we should do even better than that. So, you know, it really is a supply issue, and I think that is really what we should be concentrating on. 

Will you take an intervention?

But, obviously, that argument has been aired and we have lost it. But I still think it's important to put them in some perspective. I will give way, if—.

Thank you. Whilst accepting the fundamental principle of local democracy and the reasoning for the suspensions in the areas that we've discussed, would you accept that the word 'haemorrhaging' reflects the 46 per cent loss of social housing through right to buy? Would you accept that, by losing more of a precious commodity, you're not protecting it?

Well, we've not lost housing stock, have we? The tenancy has changed, obviously, and that's significant. There's a whole debate to be had about that, but to somehow say we've lost 150,000 homes in Wales is really a rather silly argument.

In other amendments that I'm proposing, I will return to this issue of whether sensible reform could be suggested, and a different balance. And should we ever be in a position to re-establish the right to buy, I'm sure that there would be things we would do differently. I think, sometimes, there have been one or two outlying advocates of right to buy that have not emphasised the need for social housing enough, because right to buy is not for everyone; it's not for most people who are in the social sector and, you know, I don't think conceding that reduces the argument that I'm making this afternoon.

I'm grateful to Angela, who passionately emphasised the fairness issue, and then Mark, who, of course, to those of us who have served since Mark's election first in 2003, will know what a champion of house building he's been and the fact that we need to increase the supply, which is definitely the basis of all this.

But let's make this Bill fairer. I urge Members to support amendment 5.

If amendment 5 is not agreed to, amendments 9, 11, 1 and 3 will fall. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed to. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We’ll proceed to an electronic vote. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 15, no abstentions, 35 against. Therefore, amendment 5 is not agreed.

Amendment 5: For: 15, Against: 35, Abstain: 0

Amendment has been rejected

Amendments 9, 11, 1 and 3 fell.