Diolch, Llywydd. The coronavirus pandemic is continuing to have a significant impact on daily life. As we have seen recently, it is still posing major challenges for us all and in particular for our local authorities.

I would like to express my thanks to them and to the Welsh Local Government Association who have worked so hard and been so responsive in mobilising to address the situation. We have seen unprecedented levels of engagement and co-production; national and local government working hand in hand to support our citizens and communities, especially those who were most vulnerable—a uniquely Welsh approach where local government leaders had access to Ministers on the issues that really mattered, when they mattered. We have committed significant funding to local government. The local government hardship fund provides for almost £0.5 billion to support authorities to respond to the impacts of the pandemic. I would like to thank the WLGA, the partnership council and the Society of Welsh Treasurers for their continued work with us to enable services to keep running, adapting and meeting the needs of local populations.

For the future, we plan to place our established social partnership system and structures on a statutory footing, further strengthening arrangements and supporting constructive dialogue with our social partners for the future that Wales wants post COVID-19. A priority for that future is preventing and ending homelessness in all its forms. At the beginning of the pandemic, we took immediate action to protect those who were homeless, providing £10 million of extra funding, to ensure that no-one was left without access to accommodation. More than 2,200 people have been helped into temporary or emergency accommodation—a huge achievement. But there are challenges ahead. I have made it absolutely clear that I do not want to see anyone forced back onto the streets.

To this end, in May, I announced the next phase of our homelessness response. All 22 local authorities in Wales submitted applications, setting out how they will ensure that no-one need return to the streets, focusing on innovation, building and remodelling, to transform the accommodation offer across Wales. A significant oversubscription to the original capital funding pot reflected the scale of ambition to deliver a long-term, sustainable and fundamental change to homelessness services in Wales. It also quite obviously demonstrated that the initial fund of £10.5 million capital did not match our collective ambition. Therefore, I substantially increased the overall capital funding available to £50 million, demonstrating our commitment to making a truly significant and transformational step change towards achieving our goal of ending homelessness in Wales. We have provisionally allocated funding to 70 capital projects, supporting people into settled accommodation or transforming services for the long term.

Still on housing, I welcome the suspension of evictions being extended until 20 September, and I am very happy that the court has put in place measures to ensure that the impacts of the pandemic are taken into account. Using the powers available to me under the Coronavirus Act 2020, I have acted to give additional protection to renters by increasing notice periods for eviction to six months, other than in relation to anti-social behaviour. I was pleased to note that the UK Government has since made similar changes. I am committed to ensuring that we continue to protect renters whilst at the same time mitigating impacts on landlords. Therefore, I intend making regulations extending the current protections until the end of March next year.

At the same time, and in recognition of the need to address the impact on communities of anti-social and other negative behaviour in a timely manner, I intend reducing the notice periods for possession grounds relating to anti-social behaviour and domestic abuse to the pre-COVID position. Where rent arrears have accumulated due to COVID-19, private rented sector tenants will soon be able to apply for a loan through the tenancy saver loan scheme when it opens for applications later this month. We've also provided an additional £1.4 million to boost services that support people in Wales to manage problem debt and improve their household income.

Looking beyond the pandemic, we are continuing with our Bill to amend the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 to increase security of tenure. The Bill extends the no-fault notice period from two to six months, and landlords will be prevented from issuing a no-fault notice until at least six months from the date of occupancy. This means those renting their homes will have a minimum of 12 months' security of tenure from the outset of their contract, meaning security of tenure in Wales will be greater than elsewhere in the UK.

The consequences of the pandemic are far reaching, and, sadly, the economic impact of COVID-19 will mean a significant rise in poverty levels. Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, I commissioned a child poverty review, which sought to explore what more could be done to improve outcomes for children and young people. The pandemic has had such far-reaching consequences for the lives of people in Wales and our economy, we believe the findings of that review do not now fully reflect the current landscape. Practical actions to help mitigate the impact of the crisis for families living in poverty is urgent and necessary right now. Our focus is on action to maximise income and provide support to families to build financial resilience. We are working in collaboration with our stakeholders to progress this work over the coming months.

We are working with local authorities to ensure that local authority benefits such as free school meals and council tax reduction are more accessible, as well as helping to make the administration more streamlined and less resource intensive for local authorities. We're also developing a 'no wrong door' approach through a more integrated system of support, limiting the number of contacts families and individuals have to make and the number of times they have to tell their story in order to access support. And we will ensure that third sector and other front-line workers have the training, tools and information they need to support individuals and families to maximise their incomes.

I want to finish, Llywydd, by mentioning some other areas that underpinned our response to the pandemic and will continue to be priorities as we move forward. Thanks to local authorities maintaining essential services during lockdown, we've been able to continue to deliver on recycling aims and actions on decarbonisation. We are continuing to support communities and want to rejuvenate town centres and expand on the growth in repair cafes and zero-waste shops. To that end, we have awarded funding to Repair Cafe Wales and made additional funding available for FareShare Cymru to expand their food surplus redistribution provision. And finally, we have expanded the circular economy fund so that it could support the post-COVID response and contribute to a green recovery. These are very difficult times, but we have worked well together. These collaborations will provide clear lessons and a great deal of good practice that we can and should adopt going forward. Diolch yn fawr.