Can I just welcome these amendments, which will give Rent Smart Wales the power to issue fixed-penalty notices? I brought these amendments at Stage 2, and we were pleased to hear that the Government would bring in a more suitable version at Stage 3. I do believe that there's a need to give Rent Smart Wales additional powers to strengthen this legislation, as we're considering today, and reduce the opportunities for flouting the law to go unpunished. 

I would not want to see a position where Rent Smart Wales discovers that an agent is charging a prohibitive fee as part of its work under Part 1 of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, but then is required to pass the enforcement role on to a local authority. Indeed, Rent Smart Wales agreed with this approach in their evidence, and they stated that it would be beneficial for them to have powers to enforce where appropriate, not as a lead authority, but to have enforcement powers. They described how this process currently works with the arrangements that are in place to issue fixed-penalty notices to take forward prosecutions.

Generally, it is Rent Smart Wales that takes forward enforcement action, but, where a local authority is already involved with a property or landlord, that authority may take enforcement action rather than Rent Smart Wales under that particular legislation. So, that's why we feel that a similar system should operate under this Act. We will be supporting these amendments today, which will make the system more robust and allow Rent Smart Wales to take action where appropriate.