Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I'm speaking today in my capacity as Chair of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee, and we published our report on the draft budget last week.

When I spoke last year in the draft budget debate, or rather when I last spoke on this draft budget for this financial year, I focused on the importance of the budget allocations to the housing support grant and the homelessness prevention budget line. And I'm sure Members will not be surprised to hear that I will say much the same today in relation to this debate.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant pressures on homelessness and housing services. We applaud the excellent work done at the start of the pandemic to place rough sleepers and others in need of a home into the temporary accommodation that we're all familiar with. But challenges, of course, having arisen as a result of the pandemic, must now be sustained in terms of the responses. And the importance of a secure home, and how quickly improvements can be achieved with dedicated focus and resources, I think, has been demonstrated in the response to rough-sleeping during this pandemic. But we have to sustain that progress and make sure that it is not lost in the future. 

So, we're particularly concerned about the temporary nature of development funding that has been provided and the uncertainty that it brings for the longer term sustainability of services. The Minister for Housing and Local Government told us that the additional funding in the draft budget will enable emergency accommodation and support through to the early part of the next financial year. We do not believe that this will provide the necessary long-term certainty for those delivering and accessing these services.

The improvements that have been achieved in rehousing people into permanent accommodation must continue to be built upon, if homelessness is to be eradicated or as near to eradicated as can be achieved. We have, therefore, recommended that allocating additional resources to tackle homelessness should be a priority for the Welsh Government in the final budget. 

Another aspect that has seen a big increase in demand is the council tax reduction scheme. There has been a significant reduction in the council tax collection rate, as a result of people seeing their income decrease suddenly or cease altogether. Councils have seen other income sources disappear during the pandemic. So, council tax revenue is even more important to fund services. The importance of the reduction scheme to assist people on lower incomes has never been greater, whilst local authorities need to be compensated for the impact of the increased demand for benefit on their revenue collection. 

We welcome the commitment from the Minister for Finance to review the allocation for the council tax reduction scheme ahead of the final budget, and have recommended that this should be a priority area for additional resource. And the work on the impact of the pandemic has demonstrated that those on lower incomes are more adversely affected. Therefore, further action to mitigate these inequalities must be a priority for Welsh Government. Diolch, Llywydd.