4. Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Affordability, Second Homes and the Welsh Language

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:16 pm on 6 July 2021.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 4:16, 6 July 2021

So, taking those in reverse order then, Siân, absolutely, we will be coming back to the Senedd in the autumn term to feed back on the stuff that we’ve done over the summer—the consultation and so on—and to involve Senedd Members. We’ll also be carrying on meeting with the cross-party group behind the scenes all the way through the summer and into the autumn as well to make sure that we’re picking up all the issues there.

I think the registration scheme and the licensing scheme have got conflated there, but they’re actually pretty separate. I think there is merit in a registration scheme. First of all, it enables us to understand exactly what the problem is, and secondly it makes people who want to do Airbnb really think about what they’re doing, and actually there are issues around standards and so on. You’ll know the big issues with a local family B&B having to comply with all the standards and so on as against a local Airbnb that doesn’t have to comply with the standards, and all of the issues that go alongside that. So, there are some real serious issues around this, which is why Airbnb are very keen themselves on having these kinds of registration schemes.

In terms of a licensing scheme, we’re exploring that also. That is very similar to the schemes that those of us who have big universities in our patches will be aware of for student houses in multiple occupation. That isn’t a silver bullet, I have to tell you as a person who has a very large proportion of my constituency given over to student HMOs, even though we have a licensing scheme in place. That brings with it some of its own problems. So, what we want to do is learn from those problems and make sure we don’t duplicate them in this sector. But I’m very determined that we will have a scheme that allows local authorities to limit the number of vacant houses, if you like. Some definitional problems, which I went into in an earlier response, Llywydd, come into play here, but we’re very keen to have that scheme in place so we can have caps, if you like, on the number of houses that are not permanently occupied. It's been very difficult on the HMO side to roll it back if it’s already gone above the cap. So, we will be exploring options to roll back in some areas, because, for example, in one of the wards in my own constituency, I have one street where there is nobody living—it’s just all student HMOs—and, of course, we see that in some holiday destinations with holiday lets as well. So, it’s a similar problem with a different cause. So, I’m very keen to learn from the experiences of people right around Wales, right around the UK, and right around Europe on how to deal with some of these really difficult issues. Exactly the same as the tourists—the students bring vibrancy, wealth and diversity to the city, but they also go away for very large periods of time, leaving behind them businesses that struggle to make it through the gap. It’s not a dissimilar situation, so the analogy holds.

So, we’re looking forward to working with you, Siân, as fast as we can to make sure that we get the right scheme in the right place across Wales. And as I say, the more you speak to different communities, the more you realise that there is a different set of problems in each community, and I think a one-size-fits-all-across-Wales approach will not work either, so that’s why we want to be able to pilot some of the proposals that we have in communities that are happy to help us with those pilots.