Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:46 pm on 27 March 2019.
Thank you. Minister, obviously this affects nearly 0.5 million people. Obviously, quite a lot of them are young, single people who don't seem to have a problem moving around at short notice, but the people who are really affected by this lack of any secure tenancy are people with families, which means that if they have a child in school—being evicted for no reason whatsoever; they could be model tenants—means that the child has to move school, in all likelihood. And equally, vulnerable people who require support from within the community to avoid social isolation are in a similar position.
So, if and when we are in a position to actually make the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 go live, how is the section 173 replacing section 21 actually going to make any real difference to that security that people should be able to feel in privately rented homes? Because whilst it's possible for them to simply argue in the courts that they're being evicted because the landlord doesn't want to repair or otherwise make safe the dwelling that they're renting, that is not sufficient in itself. It opens it to racism and all sorts of other prejudice that could result from this very weak landlord-tenant relationship.