Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:53 pm on 22 October 2019.
Yes. So, just to be clear on the loan, I'm not talking about loaning it to the residents; I'm talking about loaning it to the developers, because some of them are saying that they can't afford it. So, I agree with that, but we've got to work through the system. So, I completely agree with you that the people who are actually resident should not be paying for it, just to be clear. But that's really complicated, because we can't trace them all, some of them have passed on the managing companies through three or four iterations, and there's one in my patch in Swansea where everybody's gone bankrupt in sight. They're really complex issues to work through. But just to be clear, I am trying to make sure that the residents are not the people who end up footing the bill for that. So, I completely agree that they should not be although, actually, getting a fault remedied is also very important, so we'll be bringing forward that, but I take the principle of that certainly on board.
On the tax windfall, I have absolutely no idea, but I'm very happy to undertake to speak with my colleague Rebecca Evans about whether such a thing would be possible in Wales, but I certainly take your point. One of the difficulties is that people set up single-purpose vehicle companies to build these things, and so the holding company—the one that's making all the profit—is often not the one that's on the hook locally. In responding to David Melding, I should have said that that's one of the complexities of the legal system, because trying to establish a contract between yourself and the ultimate holding company can be really complicated. It's one of the things that our system will have to overcome when we do put it into place; it's just immensely complicated who holds the existing thing.
And that's the other issue on the planning thing; I absolutely have a lot of sympathy with the idea that previous reputation should be allowed to be taken into account, but it's just so easy to make a single-purpose vehicle company to do that. So, it is about tracing individuals through the system as well as company names. So, whilst I accept the principle of that, in practice, that's also very problematic to do. But I do take the principle points, which we will certainly be looking at.
Professional regulations for builders: I've already had several conversations with professional bodies around us doing that. They are very keen that a regime should be in place right across Britain because a lot of them work across boundaries and so on. I'm very keen to pursue that. If the UK Government doesn't take it forward, though, we are very keen to look at what can be done here in Wales. And that goes for the whole chain: so, estate agents as well, managing agents, and the professional bodies for builders. But the profession itself is very keen that we don't put more barriers in the place of people who are often already on poor zero-hours contracts and all that kind of stuff. So, there's a lot of complexity for that. But they are also sympathetic to the idea that, you know, I can walk out of a building, call myself a carpenter and set myself up, and clearly would have not the faintest idea of how to do that, just to be clear.
So, I've got a lot of sympathy with what you're saying. What I'd like to do, Llywydd, is keep people in touch with our thinking as it develops, and when we put the White Paper out, to continue to have that policy conversation about the practical implications of some of the principles that I think are shared across the Chamber as to what we'd like to see.