I welcome the opportunity to bring forward these amending regulations today. The Council Tax Reduction Schemes (Prescribed Requirements and Default Scheme) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 amend the 2013 council tax reduction scheme regulations. The scheme provides direct help to households across Wales by reducing their council tax bills, and these amendments ensure entitlements are maintained.

The UK Government abolished council tax benefit on 31 March 2013 and passed responsibility for developing new arrangements to the Welsh Government. The UK Government's decision was accompanied by a 10 per cent cut to the funding for the scheme. The Welsh Government responded by meeting the funding gap to maintain entitlements to support in 2013, and we have continued to maintain entitlements each year since. We also have provided an additional £11 million in 2021 to address the increased applications as a result of the pandemic. The scheme currently supports around 280,000 of the poorest households in Wales. 

Amending legislation is needed each year to ensure the figures used to calculate each household's entitlement to a reduction are increased to take into account rises in the cost of living. The 2022 regulations make these uprating adjustments and maintain existing entitlements to support. The financial figures for 2022-23 relating to working-age people, disabled people and carers, are increased in line with the consumer price index, 3.1 per cent. The figures relating to pensioner households continue to be increased in line with the UK Government's standard minimum guarantee and mirror the uprating of housing benefit. 

I have also taken the opportunity to make minor technical changes and to make additional amendments to reflect other changes to related benefits. For example, I am amending the regulations to ensure people who have come to Wales as a result of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan will be able to access this scheme without requiring them to pass a residency test. A further amendment also makes provision for how compensation payments made by the Scottish Ministers for cases of historical child abuse are to be taken into account when determining eligibility for a reduction. This will ensure that no applicant living in Wales is negatively affected because they have received a redress payment. Finally, we have removed redundant references to persons under 65 in respect of the personal allowance of pensioners. This will extend the higher rate of personal allowance to all pensioners in Wales.

These regulations maintain entitlements to reductions in council tax bills for households in Wales. As a result of this scheme, the most hard-pressed households receiving CTRS will continue to pay no council tax in 2022-23. I ask Members to approve these regulations today.