I should declare an interest as somebody who's currently renting a property.

Well, comrades, I never thought I would see the day that I would stand here this afternoon to fight against rent controls. Where have they worked? Where have they been a success for the people you claim they would help? No-one's told me so far, because the answer is they don't work. No-one is denying there are significant pressures for the housing market and there is a lack of homes for young people. However, the answer cannot be more red tape and more regulation because we are in this position now because of red tape and regulation. Across the whole of Wales in 2021, under this Welsh Labour Government's watch, your own draft budget highlighted a measly 4,314 new dwellings were commenced, and it's not going to get any better with the Natural Resources Wales's phosphate guidance stopping people building houses.

Rent controls and more red tape will not address the housing crisis, but they may make the housing crisis worse. There are landlords in this room today and wider who know that, if rent controls are introduced, some of those people may struggle to pay mortgages on those properties, they may struggle to pay the upkeep of properties, tenants will be evicted as those homes go on the open market and, yet again, we'll see more homes going on Airbnb. Rent controls pose a real risk to destabilising the market, and you all know it. Policies like these are just headline grabbers, they don't work, and people always find a way around the regulations. 

Young people need access to affordable homes, and we need to do that by deregulating and lessening the burden on the house-building sector, Minister, and let's get building, building, building.