Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:58 pm on 13 November 2019.
I'm grateful to the Minister for her answer. In her answer to the previous question, she made reference to the council tax premiums that now can be charged, but I'm sure that she's aware that there is, of course, a loophole allowing individuals to register second homes as businesses and then renting them out for a minimum number of days a year. By doing this, they can of course avoid those council tax premiums and, in fact, may become liable for small business rate relief—in that case, contributing nothing.
We know that there's an estimate that 1,000 of the 5,000 second homes in Gwynedd alone have been taking advantage of this loophole. Has the Welsh Government made any assessment of what the picture of this is across the mid and west region, what kind of impact that may be having, and how that may be exacerbating the impact of second-home ownership on those coastal communities I referred to in my original question?