Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:23 pm on 5 November 2019.
Well, thank you for that, David Rowlands. You made two points that I think require an answer—one of which was made by Mike Hedges and I neglected to mention it, which is the issue about the supply of social housing across Wales. You will know that since the removal of the cap on the housing revenue accounts in local government, not quite a year ago now, we've worked very hard with local government right across Wales to get their prudential borrowing into a position where they can build houses at pace and scale, and I'm very pleased to say that most authorities around Wales are stepping up to that ask from us with some alacrity, so we are now seeing quite an exponential increase, really, in the number of starts in social housing, and I expect to see that grow next year as well.
You also mentioned the rental income—about it being a competitive rate. Well, just to be clear, this is at the local housing allowance rate. So, that local housing allowance is set by the UK Government. Previously, in a debate in this Senedd, I did say that Members should be aware that that was frozen in 2016 and hasn't been increased since. We do understand that the Government, before it called the election, was saying that they would review that situation next year, and I really hope that any Government that comes into power after the next election will do so, because, obviously, that's at a depressed level at the moment. But the offer is at the local housing allowance level. Just to be clear, Deputy Presiding Officer, we are not looking to subsidise rents in the private rented sector at this time.