Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:37 pm on 4 March 2020.
I would very much like to meet with them. I'm being advised not to do so until the outcome of their appeal, which I now understand isn't going to be until September of this year. I'm exploring with my officials whether we could set out parameters for the meeting, which would enable me to meet with them earlier. There are some things, because I'm the planning Minister, I'm just not allowed to comment on, but I feel sure we could get those parameters. My colleague Vaughan Gething has also asked if I could look at that. So I'm very happy to ask for more official advice on that.
And we're also monitoring very carefully the developments at the UK level. There have been some announcements—or semi-announcements—around things like the Leasehold Advisory Service, Lease, and so on, which we're monitoring very carefully, because we want to make sure that, whatever is announced at UK level, is fit for purpose here in Wales. And David Melding, I know, knows better than anybody in the Chamber the nuances, or the ragged edges, of devolution around land law and property law and housing, and so we are walking a little bit on egg shells—to mix my metaphors terribly—in trying to decide quite what it is we can do. But we are looking at voluntary schemes, for example, for managing agents, and voluntary schemes for estate agents, that we can do some sort of accreditation for, to make sure that people do understand as much as possible at the point of sale, and then afterwards have some kind of ongoing guarantee from the people with whom they're in privity of contract—so the builders, and so on. So I will absolutely ask again for that advice. At the moment, as I said, I'm being advised not to meet them until after the date of the appeal, which I understand is now September 2020.