Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:27 pm on 16 October 2019.
Thank you very much, and thanks to everybody who has contributed to this debate. I think it was Llyr Gruffydd who tried to move us away from this specific issue in question, and thank you for doing that. There are broader issues, of course, than the ones that we have been discussing today, and it is possible to use the planning system in an effective way in order to create a better balance within our communities, and to allow communities to work against a situation where there are too many second homes pushing local people out because the prices are going through the roof. You only need to look at some of the communities in Gwynedd and Anglesey to see the reality of that situation, and there are other countries—Switzerland, Denmark, Northern Ireland as well, and then Guernsey and London—where there are rules within the planning system that can be used to tackle the broader problem. And I am looking forward to seeing the fruit of the labours by Gwynedd Council into this situation.
In terms of the specific issue that we’ve been discussing today, I do thank two contributors for their ideas. I'm very happy to be discussing other solutions, different to the one that we’ve proposed here today—removing business rates relief from second homes, and, yes, that’s one way ahead, or using HMRC rules. I’m very open to that, but I’m not the Minister. The Minister needs to take this issue seriously, and, unfortunately, I do feel this afternoon that we haven’t been convinced at all that there is an understanding of the complexity of the situation, and an understanding of what exactly is going on, and an understanding of this specific loophole that exists in the system. I’m very disappointed about that. I was hoping that today we would be able to have at least some kind of indication that there was a solution that was going to be found. The only chink of light that I could see is that there was a description there somewhere of artificial avoidance. Now, to me, that’s a loophole, that’s another term for ‘loophole’—that’s what artificial avoidance is. I greatly hope that this issue does get some attention from the Government.
The trick that Rhun ap Iorwerth referred to—the premium itself is what has caused this, to a certain extent. Yes, people are trying to find a way of not having to pay the premium and then looking for tricks in order to avoid paying any tax at all. The former First Minister talked about a radio advertisement that he heard about a company that was trying to provide advice to second-home owners about how to avoid paying council tax. It’s terrible when we reach a situation of that kind, because the funding or the money that’s lost from the system is very valuable funds for the local authorities, which could be used to create affordable homes, social housing, homes that are needed within our communities.
So, I do greatly hope that there will be a rethink on this and that there will be some serious consideration of how we resolve this problem. What we got from the Minister, unfortunately, was a description of the council tax collection framework and a description of what’s happening, and I have no confidence this afternoon that the Government is going to try and tackle this, despite the contributions of everyone in this room today.